It's About Time!
by Ghostboy814
Summary: Danny is ready to confess his true feelings for Sam. Do I hear wedding bells? My first fluffy fic.
1. Planning

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**_

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_I'm finally gonna do it,_ Danny thought as he flew to school. _I'm tired of both of us refusing to admit how we feel for each other. I'm finally going to tell Sam that I love her._ The two of them were in their senior year of high school. For the past four years, they had constantly denied their true feelings. They had both been afraid that the love that they felt wasn't mutual; that their friendship would be destroyed because the other person didn't feel the same way. Danny had finally gotten over both Paulina and Valerie in his junior year. He realized that Paulina could only love Phantom and reject Fenton, while Valerie would like Fenton but never accept Phantom. He realized that the one person who would like him for who he was, for just being Danny, had been right under his nose since preschool. It was at that point that his love for Sam truly blossomed.

Sam, of course, had known about her feelings for Danny since they were freshmen. Before that, when she hung out with Danny and Tucker as best friends, she had known that Danny was special to her. However, since the accident that had changed their lives forever, she had come closer to him than ever before. She had laughed every time he defeated the Box Ghost, cried over his unconscious body every time he fought a ghost more powerful than himself. Her feelings for him had evolved from hormonal "teen love" to true love. _I just hope he feels the same way for me_, she thought as she walked to school.

Sam arrived at Casper High just as Danny Phantom landed behind a clump of bushes. There was an eerie flash of white light, and Danny Fenton walked out from behind the aforementioned shrubbery. At about that time, the third member of the trio, Tucker Foley, drove up in a black Honda Element with the license plate _techno-geek._ He had wanted to get an SUV, but Sam convinced him to get a hybrid instead. "It'll save you so much money on gas, you'll be able to buy a better PDA" was the argument that finally won him over.

The three of them walked into school together. Almost immediately, Paulina approached Danny and, running her finger down his chest, asked if he had seen Inviso-Bill lately. He pushed it away. "What's the matter? Am I making your girlfriend jealous?"

"He/She's not my boy/girlfriend!" Danny and Sam yelled in unison.

"Okay, _novios,_ whatever you say," she said with a smirk and walked away to talk to her popular friends.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker hung out by Tucker's locker until the two minute warning bell rang for their first period class. Sam headed over to the History Department for her Holocaust Studies course, while Danny and Tucker had math with Mr. Ozai. In the middle of a boring lecture, Tucker passed a note to Danny. It read, "When are you going to tell her how you really feel."

Danny responded, writing "hopefully tonight."

Tucker rejoined, "It's about time! I was getting kind of tired of trying to hook you two up. I still haven't finished repaying all the favors I owe from that meat locker thing."

"Wait, you mean it was you who was responsible for that?" Danny wrote, outraged. The incident to which they were referring had taken place two years ago. Danny and Sam had 'accidentally' been locked in a meat locker that 'happened' to have a ghost shield around it that prevented Danny from phasing the two of them out. The idea was that they would have to hug each other to keep warm, and the constant touching would help them realize their true feelings for each other. Unfortunately, Tucker had forgotten the teeny little detail that Sam was an ultra-reyclo vegetarian. She saw all of the meat and, in a fit of rage, broke the door down with the haunches of a cow.

"Please don't tell her! I don't want to die being strangled by the wires from my PDA!"

"Don't worry, I won't tell Sam-yet. But I have _soo_ much leverage on you now." Tucker gulped, knowing that nothing good could come of Danny having dirt on him.

Meanwhile, Sam was trying to stay awake through Mrs. Khon's lecture. She took this course for two reasons: one, because the subject was a major part of her Jewish heritage, and two, because the only work she had had to do the whole year was try to look attentive. She spent most of the class staring into space and thinking about Danny. She thought about his ice-blue eyes, his raven hair…she snapped back to attention when she saw the teacher staring at her. However, once Mrs. Khon looked elsewhere, she returned to thinking about him. _I think that I prefer the blue eyes to the green…But I like the jumpsuit, it makes him look really sexy! Especially since he's started to widen out._ It was true, Danny was no longer the small, skinny adolescent he had been as a freshman. He had shot up, now standing at six feet. While he was not as muscular as Dash Baxter, his arms and abs were firm and strong. In his ghost form, he was a formidable opponent. Of course, right now the only part of his ghost form that Sam was thinking about was the skintight costume.

She was broken out of her reverie by the bell. Danny was waiting for her outside of the classroom. The two of them walked together to Spanish. This class was noisy and crowded, so the two of them were able to sit in the back pretty much undetected. They spent much of this time reminiscing about all of the good times they had had. "Remember the first school dance, when I was wearing the Amulet of Eragon?"

"Yeah, you really had a roaring time that night." He said, and they both laughed.

"Remember when Ember put me under that spell?" Danny asked. Sam blushed, remembering how much she had enjoyed having Danny love her instead of that slut, Paulina. It had broken her heart almost as much as it had Danny's when she had had to break the spell by kissing Dash. Quickly changing the subject, she said, "Remember when Desiree made it so that we had never met?"

"Yeah, that was really weird." Their conversation pretty much followed this vein for the rest of the class. The three friends all had English together, then lunch. After lunch, Danny and Tucker had regular history together, while Sam had math. For their last class of the day, they had Tech. Danny and Sam were in the same Tech class. Tucker, of course, was in the AP class. During the class, Sam received an IM from Danny. It read _meet me in the park, at the top of that hill with the single tree on it, tonight at 6:00._ Surprised and curious, she replied _okay._ She wanted to ask him what was going on, but as soon as the bell rang, she looked over to his seat but he had disappeared. _Damn ghost powers,_ she thought.

As soon as the bell rang, Danny turned invisible and intangible and flew out of the room. He reached through his locker door and put the books he needed into his backpack. Then, he flew home. He spent the afternoon pacing his room, thinking about what he was planning to do that night. He was nervous, afraid that Sam wouldn't reciprocate his feelings. He didn't know if he would be able to even see her again if she were to reject him. The pain would be too much. Unable to continue to think like this, Danny gave his head a little shake. He tried to think about the opposite; what would happen if Sam admitted that she loved him back. He grinned at the thought of fireworks and a meteor shower in the background of a long, passionate kiss.

Sam came to the park that night, just as she had promised. _What could he be planning?_ She thought to herself. Upon ascending the hill, she realized that this was the place where they had had their first fake-out make out while Sam was trying to hide Danny from Valerie. Danny walked up to her, seemingly out from behind the shadows that the setting sun cast on the hill. "Sam," he said, "I have something very important to tell you." She could tell that what he was about to say was extremely difficult for him; his facial features revealed the turmoil that was going on just beneath the surface. He put his hands on her shoulders. "Samantha Adele Manson," he said, enunciating every syllable as though they were the most important words he would ever speak, "I love you." Sam stood stock-still, her eyes wide.


	2. It's about time!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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First, she kicked him in the left shin. "That was for calling me by my middle name." He stared at her blankly, barely comprehending what she was saying to him. She got his attention by kicking his other shin. "That was for taking so long to realize your true feelings, blockhead."

"So, what's your answer? Do you love me back?" He asked.

"Daniel Jack Fenton, I love you and I always will," she said, pure joy radiating from her amethyst eyes. Then, without pausing, without thinking, they kissed. In that moment, each of them felt complete, as though a part of themselves that had eluded them for the last eighteen years had finally returned to them. The kiss was long and passionate. When Sam opened her eyes, she looked into a universe of bright green. She was floating a few feet off the ground, in the arms of the man she loved.

"Sorry…" he apologized, landing softly on the grass. "I'll have to watch that."

"I think that you'll get over it eventually. All you need is some practice." With that, they kissed again.

This time, they were punctuated by a chill that ran up Danny's spine. All of a sudden, Sam broke away, coughing like mad. She gave an especially loud cough, and a wisp of blue smoke came out of her mouth. "I've always wondered what that felt like," she mused. Suddenly, they heard the oh-so-familiar cry of "BEWARE!" Sam turned around and followed Danny's gaze to behold the Box Ghost, who was holding an envelope.

"I, the Box Ghost, all-powerful master of all things cardboard and square, hereby present the halfa with this!" He said, thrusting the envelope into Danny's chest. Then, he disappeared with his signature cry of "Beware!"

Danny opened the envelope to reveal an invitation. He read it aloud, "You are hereby invited to witness the joyous union of the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady in holy matrimony..."

"WHAT!" They both exclaimed at once.

"No way…there's no way on earth or the Ghost Zone…" Danny said, still in shock. "C'mon, it'll be fun," Sam pleaded, "besides, how often do we get to see a couple of ghosts get married?"

"Wait a minute, _we_? The invitation is just for me."

"Yeah, but it says here that you're allowed to bring a date that's your own species. And since you're human, well, half human, then that means you can bring me!"

"What if it's just a trap? What if it's the ghosts trying to lure me into the Ghost Zone so that they can imprison me there and rid the world of the ghost kid that keeps interfering with their plans? I don't want to bring you into any unnecessary danger, Sam."

"Danny, do you honestly think that the Box Ghost could think up something this complicated?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right." They kissed again and walked down the hill, hand in hand.

There was uproar the next day at Casper High. Everyone was relieved that the geek and the Goth were finally an item, and practically everyone ended up a few dollars richer or poorer, depending on which side of the debate they were on. In their first period English class, Mr. Lancer practically cart wheeled into the room. "Thanks to you two lovebirds, I just won $1000 from Ms. Tetzlaff. To show my gratitude, I'm giving you both an A+ on that term paper due next week." Sam and Danny both blushed, though whether it was out of shyness or gratitude was uncertain. Unfortunately, not everyone was too happy about Sam and Danny coming together. "FENTON!" Dash's voice could be heard from across the cafeteria. "I'm out twenty bucks thanks to you and your girlfriend!"

"It's not my fault you made a bet on me, Dash."

Yes it is! And to make up for it, you're going to be giving me twenty bucks' worth of bruises!"

"Or I could just give you the twenty dollars you lost." Dash stood still, blinking stupidly.

"That would work." Danny gave him the money, and the bully went back to tormenting freshmen.

It was lucky that Sam and Danny didn't have to worry about their term paper for Lancer, because it freed up their whole weekend. That allowed Danny and Sam to prepare for the wedding. They decided to take the Specter Speeder, so that Danny wouldn't have to fly around the Ghost Zone carrying Sam around forever. It wasn't that he didn't want to hold her for as long as he possibly could; he was just worried about getting tired after a few hours. When the day finally arrived, Danny Phantom flew into Sam's room, and he saw the dress she was wearing. His jaw dropped. She was wearing a black strapless that hugged her slender form and went down to just below her knees.

"Wow…you look…" Sam just smiled mischievously. He put his arm around her waist, turned them both invisible, and flew her into his parents' lab.

"Did you leave your folks a note?" he asked.

"What, saying that I went into a parallel dimension with my boyfriend, who, by the way, they're in the process of getting a restraining order against? Nah. I told my grandma, though, she understood."

"She understood that we were going into the Ghost Zone?"

"She understood that you were driving me to a wedding, and weren't sure when we'd be back."

"Nice."

Danny opened the Fenton Portal and phased himself and Sam into the Specter Speeder. He fired up the ignition and shot the hovercraft forwards into the parallel dimension. The scenery immediately changed from chrome to green. Everywhere they looked, all they could see was blackness interspersed with green spirals of varying degrees. Purple doors tinged with green auras floated around the Specter Speeder. Then they saw the ghosts. Ghosts of all shape, sizes, and colors all flying in the same direction. Danny and Sam followed the trail of spirits until they reached a massive throng containing what appeared to be every ghost in the Ghost Zone. Looking beyond this ghastly group, they beheld the bride and groom.

"Oh, my God…" Sam said.


	3. At the wedding

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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The Box Ghost was dressed in a fancy tuxedo instead of his usual white shirt, blue overalls, and hat. He was behaving extremely urbane, greeting all of the guests politely and not even shouting "Beware!" _Wow, I guess the clothes really do make the man, er, ghost,_ Sam thought. The Lunch Lady was wearing a traditional white dress. Danny approached the two ghosts and threw the Specter Speeder into "park." He took out the keys, and, upon going ghost, held Sam around the waist and flew the two of them over to the couple.

"I'm glad you could make it, and consequently I'm glad that you could find a date, young Halfa." The Box Ghost said.

"Thanks-I think. I hope that the two of you like the presents Sam and I decided on." Danny said. He used his ghostly telekinesis to levitate a large refrigerator box. After that, he brought out a small cooler full of meat.

"They're wonderful, dearie, thank you," The Lunch Lady said.

"Oh yeah," Sam said with a hint of guilt, "I never really got the chance to apologize for abruptly changing your menu like that."

"It's all right. Even when I was alive, there were children who chose to be vegetarian. I always respected their wishes, and agreed to set up a salad bar in the cafeteria. Just don't move in on my precious meat again."

"That's my girl," The Box Ghost said, giving his fiancée a peck on the cheek.

_Definitely an 'eew'_ Danny and Sam both thought at the same time. In an attempt to get out of there, Danny said, "Well, it's nice to have been able to speak to you both before the ceremony starts, but we have to head back to the car for a bit to get ready."

"Of course, of course, just don't forget, the ceremony starts in half an hour!"

Danny flew Sam back to the Specter Speeder and reverted to his human form. "It appears that the ghosts have some sort of truce, similar to the Christmas Truce in effect, since none of my former enemies have attacked me so far-" Danny was interrupted by Sam embracing him and holding him close.

"It's so cold out there, being surrounded by all those ghosts."

"Don't worry; I'll keep you warm." The two of them stood still, wrapped in each other's arms, keeping each other safe from harm. They kissed and, while not as passionate as their first, held the same amount of longing and subsequent happiness. When they broke apart for air, Danny noticed the glowing green digital clock that rested on the dashboard of the Specter Speeder. It was just about time for the ceremonies to start.

On the way to the chapel, Danny and Sam ran into most of his enemies. They didn't have anything to fear, however, since Danny's prediction of a truce turned out to be true. Even Vlad, who, being an evil halfa, did not have to follow such archaic rules such as truces if he chose not to, at least acted civil at the wedding and was not even making any plans to assimilate power among the residents of the Ghost Zone to himself. He sat next to Danny as the ghostly priest announced the vows.

_First Jack, then young Daniel, now even the Box Ghost has found love. I must be the loneliest man on both worlds. I realize now that I'll never have Maddie, but maybe we just weren't meant to be. Maybe I just haven't found my soulmate yet, and she's still out in the world somewhere. Or maybe Daniel's right and I should just get a cat,_ were his thoughts as he watched the proceedings.

During the party he approached Danny, who was enjoying himself dancing with Sam. "Daniel, might I have a word, alone?"

"I'd love to, Plasmius, but I can't exactly let go of Sam while we're here; she's not a ghost and so she won't be able to fly or anything…"

"Very well, she can come also." Vlad led the couple away from the dance floor that was floating in midair above the sea of green. "I've decided to stop chasing your mother."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. I realized during the ceremony that she's happily married as it is, and so my time would be better suited finding someone who would truly be happy with me. And before you ask, no, I'm not talking about getting a cat."

"Aww…" Sam said, "but cats are so cute and cuddly." Vlad, not taking his archenemy's girlfriend as seriously has he did Danny, ignored this and addressed the younger halfa directly.

"But, just because I won't be trying to win Maddie over, doesn't mean that I don't want you as an apprentice. I still expect you to appear on my doorstep one of these days. But until then, Daniel, _ta,_" He said, and vanished in a whirl of his cloak.

"I'm glad that he's finally off your back, Danny."

"Yeah, for now…but that doesn't mean he won't be back in the future. But let's not think about that just now," he said, pulling her close to him, "there's a dance floor just over there with our name on it." They flew back to the dance floor and resumed having a great time.

After what seemed like an eternity, the two of them returned to the Specter Speeder, laughing their heads off at the party they had just left. "I never knew that Skulker was so good at limbo," Sam said.

"Yeah, and we thought that Technus had a problem with talking about himself when he was sober. One drink and _yikes_!" The two of them had had a bit to drink, but they were careful to stop after only a couple of drinks. Sam had promised her grandmother that she wouldn't get totally hammered, and Danny had to pilot the two of them back home. Fortunately for him, though, Sam insisted that he wait at least a couple of hours before starting the drive back.

"So, what are we gonna do for the next two hours?" Danny asked, after changing back into his human form.

"I can think of something," Sam said as she took off his shirt. As he wrapped his arms around her she noticed the powerful muscles that enveloped her. Their tongues danced together with a vigor that surpassed even their owners previous performance at the party. Sam broke away and, holding Danny by the hand, pulled him into the sleeping quarters of the Specter Speeder and shut the door.


	4. That night

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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Danny piloted the Specter Speeder back to the portal that would take him and Sam back to the real world. Sam lay in the chair beside him, sound asleep. _If her parents ever found out what we did, they'd skin me alive. Thank God for the Fenton Condom, anyway._ He noticed the swirling vortex that marked the tear in reality off to the left. He brought the hovercraft through it and parked it back in the lab. Transforming into his ghost form, he lifted Sam up and flew her back to her house. She woke up just as he was tucking her into bed.

"Danny?"

"Yeah, Sam,"

"Don't tell Tucker about what we did."

"Of course I won't tell Tucker! He'd never leave us alone if he knew." Sam smiled tiredly and drifted off to sleep. Danny watched her happily for a few minutes, and then flew back to his own house.

Jazz, of course, had been worried sick over her little brother, who had disappeared all day without telling anyone where he had gone. And if that wasn't bad enough, he had apparently taken Sam with her. As soon as she heard Danny walking around in his room, she barged in the door yelling, "Where have you been?"

"Relax, Jazz, Sam and I just went to a wedding."

"Is that so? Who's wedding? Where? And why wasn't anyone else from our family invited?"

"Okay, in order. It was the Box Ghost and Lunch Lady's wedding. The ceremony and reception took place in the Ghost Zone. And I don't think that they would have wanted to invite a family of ghost hunters; the only reason I got an invite is because I'm the halfa."

"And how am I supposed to believe that?" As if on cue, the Box Ghost himself materialized in the hybrid's room.

"Once again, I, the Box Ghost, thank you and your date for getting us those amazing wedding presents. And now I must return to my wife, the beautiful Lunch Lady. BEWARE!" With that, he flew back into the Ghost Zone. Danny had hoped that this sudden revelation of truth would mollify his sister. How woefully wrong he was. She immediately turned on him again.

"Well, you still shouldn't have been gone for an entire day and most of the night."

"What! There's no way we were in the Ghost Zone for that long. All we did was go to the ceremony and the party and come straight back," Danny said, praying that her sister was too angry to notice his white lie.

"That couldn't have taken a day and a night."

"Well, we noticed that you were gone at around 10:00 this morning, and now it's about 1 AM. How can you explain that?"

"I have a theory…but it's pretty weak and completely untested…" Danny said as he cast his fate to the winds.

"Well, what is it?" Jazz demanded.

"Maybe time passes more slowly in the Ghost Zone than in the real world. That's how the same ghosts can continue to haunt us, even years after we've initially met them, and they still have the same appearance as the first time we fought."

"You're right," Jazz said with a sarcastic grin, "That theory _is_ pretty weak. I have a feeling about what went on, but I think that as your punishment, I'll keep quiet and let you stew in fear and worry about what exactly I know."

"Thanks Jazz-I think." Jazz walked out of the room, allowing Danny to tiredly sink into bed and fall into a deep slumber filled with dreams of the love of his life, Sam.


	5. Sweet ride!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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The next day, Danny decided to drive himself and Sam to school. His parents had been so pleased that his grades had gone up over the years that they had bought him a sleek new Porsche. It was black, and Danny had the front painted with green flames. Of course, it wouldn't be complete without several tons of ghost-hunting equipment that his parents had jammed into it, just in case there was a ghost attack while he was on the road. He pulled up to Sam's house and honked the horn. She came outside, followed by her parents, who saw the car and immediately fainted out of shock and surprise.

"I think I could get used to this," she mused. "Be sure to drive me more often." He held the steering wheel with his left hand and put his right around her waist.

"Anything for you, Sammy."

"Don't call me that!" she said, blushing. Danny noticed that she didn't try to remove his arm.

On the way to school, they passed the familiar moving supplies store. Suddenly, what looked like a million boxes flew out from the store. "BEWARE!" the Box Ghost yelled at the top of his lungs.

"So don't have time for this," Danny said. He pressed a button on the dashboard and a control panel appeared where the radio was supposed to be. He then flipped two switches that were located on the upper left-hand corner of the control panel-the first one activated a Ghost Detection Device that automatically locked onto the Box Ghost, placing his exact coordinates on the mainframe of the computer that was located behind the panel. The second caused a Fenton Thermos to emerge from the hood, using the same technology that Skulker employed when summoning a rocket launcher from his exo-skeleton. It followed the directions that the computer had saved and released its tractor beam at the exact place where the Box Ghost was floating. Once he got sucked into the thermos, Danny immediately turned of the ghost scanner so that it wouldn't lock onto _him_. Then he flipped the switch that would put the thermos back in its place and turn the anti-ghost control panel back into a normal car radio.

"You do realize that you just thoroughly schooled the guys who work for Pimp My Ride, right?" Sam asked with a smirk.

"One time when we were visiting relatives in LA they saw us in the Specter Speeder. They all got on their knees and started to chant 'we are not worthy.'" The two of them laughed it up for the rest of the car ride.

Nobody else at their school had seen the technology that Danny's parents had installed in his car. But that didn't make much of a difference to them when Danny and Sam pulled up into the senior's parking lot, as the paint job was impressive enough to the easily impressionable mind of a teenage boy.

"Whoa, sweet ride, Dan!" exclaimed some junior Danny didn't know. He received several hundred comments like this until people finally got bored by the car and went to ogle Paulina instead. After he helped Sam out of the car, he put on the anti-theft device. Just then, Dash walked up to them.

"Hey, Fen-tina, would it be okay with you if me and my friends wanted to borrow your car for a bit?"

"I don't mind, but the car really wouldn't appreciate it; I just got a new anti-theft device installed. I wouldn't recommend that you test it though, for your own sakes."

"Yeah, right, like I'd believe that. C'mon guys!" He got seven other jocks to grab the underside of the car and try to flip it over. Suddenly, the car began to beep "GHOST ALERT! GHOST ALERT! GHOST ALERT!" Eight ecto-guns emerged from the interior of the car and blasted the jocks with green ectoplasmic goo.

"I tried to warn you guys," Danny said with a smirk. Ignoring the complaints that they'd never get this stuff out of their jackets, he walked his girlfriend into the building.


	6. Five Years Later

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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----------------------------------------------Five Years Later-----------------------------------------

Danny and Sam had been going steady for the last five years. They had both graduated from Casper High and attended Amity State University. They had remained together through all this time because they knew that they were made for each other. Their lives couldn't be any happier. Walking through the park, Danny knew that it was time to take their relationship one step further. He remembered back to a time five years ago, when he and Sam had been best friends and were both too afraid to admit their feelings for each other. When they had finally broken that barrier, it had felt as though a weight had been lifted from off their shoulders. Danny knew that what he was about to do would be much easier than admitting to her how he felt, since both of then knew that it was the next logical step. He ascended that hill once again, the hill where they had had their first fake-out makeout, where they had broken down and admitted their feelings for each other. At the top of the hill he found Sam, the breeze ruffling her hair. She wore her raven hair down to the middle of her back now. His ebony locks were only slightly longer then they had been when he was a teenager, but still long enough to warrant the need to restrain it in a pony tail. He reached her and enveloped her in a tight bear hug.

"Sam, I love you. I've loved you since preschool, and I will love you until the end of time itself," he whispered into her ear.

"Danny, I love you also; I would never let you go, not in a million, billion years." Danny smiled and got down on one knee.

"If that's the case," he said as he took a ring out of his pocket, "then will you be my wife so that we can be together for ever and ever?"

"Danny, of course I'll marry you!" Sam exclaimed as she held the ring up to the light of the setting sun. "But why is the ring engraved to a person named Wes?"

"Turn it over. Wow, and I thought that I was the C student around here," he said playfully as he poked her in the side. Sam giggled and turned the class ring over, noticing for the first time that the ring actually said 'Sam' on it.

"So you almost gave Valerie a ring that said my name on it all those years ago. Smooth."

She slipped the ring onto her left ring finger, and the two of them embraced once again. They kissed, a long, passionate kiss, and then went home to their apartment arm in arm.

The next day, each of them called their families and told them that they were engaged. Danny's family took the news enthusiastically, as always. His mother, who had been the first one to pick up the phone, said, "Congratulations, sweetie! Your father and I are so proud of you!" She turned to Jack and whispered quietly so that Danny couldn't hear her over the phone, "Fork over the dough, fat man. They got engaged before the age of twenty-five. I won fair and square."

"What was that?" Danny asked.

"Nothing, sweetie." Maddie said. Danny put Sam on the phone with his mother and they started talking about plans for the wedding. Afterwards, Sam called her parents to tell them that she was engaged. They were overjoyed, until they found out whom she was engaged to. They were mortified at the prospect of being related to the Fentons, whom they still despised. Even so, they were happy that their daughter was being somewhat traditional for once in her life.

"I know that you know that your father and I aren't on the best terms with the boy's family, but we're happy for you nonetheless." Her mother said. "If only your grandmother was here to see you get married; she would have been so proud of you! Besides, she always used to say that she had a good feeling about that Fenton boy."

Sam said her goodbyes and hung up the phone, a tear glinting in her eye. Danny noticed this and asked her what was the matter. "My parents just reminded me about Grandma, about how she would be so happy to see us get married."

"Ooh." Danny realized the cause for her concern immediately. Sam had been very close to her grandmother, and she had been deeply affected by her death. She would have gone to pieces entirely if it had not been for Danny's support. "If you want, I can go into the Ghost Zone and look for her, if you want to see her one more time." Sam shook her head.

"It would be too painful to say goodbye again. Besides, she wouldn't have come back as a ghost. She lived a full, happy life, and is in heaven right now." (Scene shifts to heaven, where Sam's grandmother bowls a strike at the heavenly bowling alley that puts her ahead her competitor, an old man with hair whitened with age and sapphire-blue eyes. "That's right, you got no game, grandpa Fenton!" The man bowls a strike himself, saying, "Oh, it's on, grandma Manson!")

Sam rested her head on Danny's chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. They stood there for some time, him silently comforting her while she dealt with the grief that had welled up within her. Finally, Sam looked up at him. A few tears studded her face, but beneath them she was smiling slightly. "Thanks, Danny. I feel much better now."

"Anything for you, Sammy."


	7. You're WHAT?

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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The day of the wedding finally arrived. Friends and family of the couple sat in pews facing the altar. The Fentons and Mansons were sitting next to each other, all parents bawling at their children's union (and their own subsequent union as in-laws). Classmates from high school and college also dotted the audience. Danny stood on the podium in front of the interfaith minister with Tucker, his best friend and best man, by his side. "Nervous?" The chocolate-skinned man asked with a grin.

"Nah, its not like I'm about to get married, right?"

"You two were obviously made for each other. Who else were you going to marry?"

"That's not what I'm nervous about. What if I can't be a good husband to her?"

"You'll be fine. You both love each other and that's all that matters."

"Yeah, and what if a ghost shows up?"

"She's been fighting ghosts with you for like ten years now. Why would it make a difference now that you're married?"

"The ghosts might want to hold her for ransom or something."

"You worry too much. Stop being paranoid."

Danny was about to respond to this but stopped when the organ began to play. Now, Danny was never one to put much stock in tradition, so it's not like he wasn't willing to interrupt the organ to bite Tucker's head off. He couldn't respond because he saw Sam walking down the aisle with her father, and he was rendered speechless. He couldn't believe that after all these years they were finally going to be together forever. After all of the trials and tribulations he had put her through, what with Paulina and then Valerie, he had been afraid that he would let her down again and hurt her by dating another woman instead. He was deathly afraid that something would happen to drive them apart, and he didn't want to put her through that kind of separation. He knew that it would be too hard for either of them to bear. But after today, he wouldn't have to worry about that any more. He would be bound to his Sam for all eternity, and he wouldn't have it any other way. _God, she looks beautiful in that dress,_ he thought. As she approached the podium, she attempted to dislodge her hand from that of her father. She succeeded on the third try and joined her true love. Without further ado, they were wed in holy matrimony. They kissed, and the room erupted in cheers.

At the party, Danny and Sam led the dancing and festivities. As they twirled around the dance floor, they were approached by none other than Vlad Masters. "Daniel, Samantha, I couldn't be happier for the two of you. In fact, I've paid for you to honeymoon in the Caribbean for two weeks at the Ritz Carleton in St. Thomas. "Wow, Vlad, thank you so much! And thank you for the other thing as well," Danny whispered with a wink. Vlad smiled and melded into the crowds littering the dance floor. "What was that about?" Sam asked. Danny glanced around the room and then leaned forward to whisper in her ear: "He touched me with the Plasmius Maximus before the ceremony so that my ghost sense wouldn't keep going off and alerting everyone to their presence. You wouldn't have been able to notice it, but almost every ghost we know watched the ceremony and is dancing, invisible and intangible, right now. I had thought about the Box Ghost and Lunch Lady wedding and decided to reciprocate the favor." "You're a real sweetie, Danny." "And you're my Goth Princess, Sammy."

That night, they went to the airport and flew to the Caribbean to enjoy their honeymoon. They relaxed on the beach by day, and had candlelit dinners by night. It was a wonderful vacation and the newlyweds were loath to leave it behind. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and it was too soon before they had to board the plane home. They were driven to FentonWorks in the Fenton RV, where Jack and Maddie had prepared a small party to celebrate their return, just with the family and close friends. Champaigne was passed all around. "No thanks," Sam said. "I'll just have a coke, if it's not too much trouble." Jazz gave her a questioning look, which immediately turned into one of wide-eyed surprise. "No way!" She said slowly.

"Yep!" Sam exclaimed happily.

"Sam, that's wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!" Danny couldn't comprehend his sister's behavior. "What?" he asked. Jazz whispered something to Maddie, who immediately began jumping for joy.

"Oh, I'm so proud of you!" She shouted.

"This is great news!" Jack said, having been let in on the secret.

"C'mon, guys, what is it?" Danny whined.

"You always were the clueless one, Danny," Jazz noted with a smirk.

"Just tell me already! What's everyone so excited about?"

"Should we tell him or let him figure it out on his own?" Jazz asked.

"You tell him, sweetie." Maddie nodded to Sam.

"Danny, I'm pregnant!" Sam said, beaming all the while.

He stared at her in shock as he let the words sink in. Suddenly, pure joy radiated from his eyes and a huge smile cracked his face. He shouted out joyfully and enveloped her in a bone-crushing hug. "I'm gonna be a dad!" He said, over and over. He hugged Jazz, then Maddie and Jack. He held his beloved's hand looked into her amethyst eyes. "We're going to be parents!" he exclaimed giddily. "We're going to raise a family of our own! We're going to be parents!"

"I can't believe that we're going to be grandparents," Maddie muttered.

"Wait 'till I tell Vladdie. He'll be so happy!" Jack said.

"We should call Tucker and tell him the news," Sam thought out loud.

"Heck, we should make Tucker out baby's godfather!" Danny exclaimed.

"That's true, he should be the godfather. I just want to call my parents first."

"Okay, just put it on speaker phone, I want to hear their reactions," Danny said with an evil grin. Sam mirrored the grin and dialed her home phone number. Her father picked up the phone first.

"Dad, it's me, Sam. Danny and I just got back from our honeymoon."

"That's great, sweetie! Do you two know where you're going to live?"

"Well, we figured that we would just stay in the apartment we've been sharing for the past year or so."

"Good, good."

"Oh, and Daddy? I have another bit of news."

"What is it, Sammykins?"

"I'm pregnant!" They heard a thud and Sam's mother spoke into the phone next.

"What happened, Samantha? Your father fainted all of a sudden."

"I was just telling him about our honeymoon."

"Oh! How did it go? Did you enjoy yourselves?"

"Well, I'm pregnant now so…yeah." The Fenton family expected to hear another thud. What they didn't expect was for Sam's mother to shriek with joy.

"Sammy, that's wonderful! When are you due? Is it a boy or a girl?"

"Uh…I'm due in August, and I just found out a couple of weeks ago, so I don't exactly know whether it's a boy or a girl yet…"

"And who are its godparents going to be?"

"Danny and I were thinking of naming Tucker as its godfather."

"This is terrific news, Sam! Your father and I are so proud of you! Well, I am and I'm sure that he will be once he wakes up. Keep us updated!"

"I will, Mom, don't worry."

"Bye, honey."

"Bye, Mom." Sam hung up the phone and turned to face her in-laws.

"Well your father took the news rather…well," Maddie joked.

"Yeah, wasn't it great? I love making him faint, it's become kind of a sport for me."

"I'm glad that your mother is as optimistic about this baby as we are, though" Jazz said. "The last thing a new family needs is a lack of support coming from one of the sets of soon-to-be grandparents. It's completely detrimental to the psychological health of the parents, not to mention the child…"

"Okay, Jazz, I think we get it," Danny said exasperatedly. Sam looked at the clock on the wall that had a green ghost as its face and said, "It's getting pretty late. We should get home." Danny hugged her one more time, saying, "We're going to be parents! It's unbelievable!" He drove her to their apartment with that sappy grin still on his face. Finally, the couple entered their apartment.

"Danny, if you don't stop smiling like that your face will get stuck that way."

"I'm just so happy, Sam. I can't believe that in less than a year, we'll be starting a family of our own. I'm almost as happy as the day I realized that you're the only true love for me."

"So, in other words, the day you finally got over Paulina?"

"Wow…that stage of our lives seems so long ago already. It feels like it's been an eternity since we've had to deal with her and Dash, Kwan, and the rest of the football team."

"Not to mention since you went through the portal and became the town hero."

"Yeah, first I had to get over being Public Ghost Enemy #1."

"You were always my hero, Danny," She said, giving him a quick kiss on the lips.

"Hero I might have been, but you were always there to save me. You saved me from Ember, remember?"

"Hey, that rhymed."

"Gah, don't remind me!"

"You're still scared of rhymes? You big baby."

"If you think that I'm a baby, just wait 'till August."

"Funny, real funny."

"I still can't believe that we're going to be parents!"

"How many times are you going to say that? You're starting to sound like the Box Ghost, what with all of the repetitions."

"I'm just so happy for us. I love you so much Sam."

"I love you too, Danny. More than words can say." They shared a long kiss, then turned out the lights and went to bed.

* * *

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM! 


	8. Work

**Disclaimer: I _still_ do not own Danny Phantom.**

* * *

Tucker Foley was in graduate school at MIT. He was at the top of his class, mostly because he had so much experience integrating circuitry. He was revered in his fraternity for his ability to override electronic devices with his PDA, making the robots that his classmates built go on the fritz and perform random acts. "It's nothing compared to Skulker," he always said. This was received with awe even though nobody had any idea who, or what, Skulker was and Tucker never elaborated. He was in the common room of his frat house boasting to a gaggle of students when his cell phone rang. "Yeah, this is Tucker Foley…hey Danny! How is everything with you and Sam? Uh huh…uh huh…uh huh…WHAT? NO FREAKING WAY! THAT'S AMAZING! I always said that you two would end up together, but I didn't know that you would get so busy so quickly…" at this point he held the phone about a foot away from his head as his two best friends yelled into the phone. "Are you done yelling? I'm not sure, but I think that my hearing is starting to come back now…really? I'm honored. Really. That means a lot to me. I'll drop by to congratulate you in person as soon as I get a free weekend. Right now I'm telling a bunch of kids about the time Technus made a battle suit out of the Fenton RV and some stuff from a hardware store…no, they don't, but they think it's really cool how I kept overriding Skulker's exoskeleton with my PDA…you're right, a 400-pound gorilla _is_ somewhat more effective…anyway, I gotta go. Talk to you later!" He hung up and turned to the rest of the students who were listening in, their eyes the size of dinner plates. "Gorilla?" one of them had the courage to ask weakly. "Don't ask…trust me, you don't want to know," the techno-geek responded with a smirk.

Back at their apartment, Danny hung up the kitchen phone and turned around to face his wife. "So you told him?" Sam asked, gesturing towards her belly.

"Yeah, and his reaction was typical Tuck-freak out and then give himself all the credit. He was in the middle of telling some students about the time that Technus upgraded."

"Did he blab about…you know…your secret?"

"He wouldn't do something like that. Tucker might have a big mouth, but he knows better than to say something about the fact that I'm Danny Phantom."

"How many other of our little 'adventures' has he described to his fan club?"

"Just the first time we ever fought Skulker."

"He probably gets a kick out of telling them how he can override Skulker's armor with his PDA."

"Yeah, apparently the technology that lets him do that also works on other robots as well, so he can manipulate his friends science projects. He's become really popular because of that."

"Did he tell them about Samson?"

"I think the only part of our adventure he related was the part involving the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter doing push-ups on his command."

"You know, if he gets too cocky I can always put that picture on the Internet."

"Picture?" Sam held up the picture of him and Tucker sleeping at the zoo.

"Yeah, but it would embarrass me as well!"

"Nah, I can always Photoshop Dash onto it instead of you if we need to."

"Great, we can embarrass both MIT's top student and the Jets first-string quarterback at the same time. You're so evil," he said as he gave her a small kiss. She giggled and slipped out from under his embrace.

"C'mon, or we'll be late for work," she said and grabbed her car keys.

"Work," he mumbled under his breath. "I marry the cellophane-twirling deli-toothpick heiress worth millions and I still have to go to work." He didn't let her hear this, though, and plastered a somewhat convincing, weak smile on his face as he picked up his own keys.

Ironically enough, Danny worked at Axion labs for none other than Damian Grey. During college he had realized that he owed the man so much after ruining his life, and especially since Valerie and her father hadn't run him out of town after she saw him transform in an alley once. They had accepted him and his apologies, but he wanted to do more for them. So, he talked with his parents and arranged for them to build Axion it's own ghost shield that operated independently of the one at FentonWorks. Then, he joined the company's security branch and specialized in issues involving ghosts. True, he didn't have his parents' expertise in inventing ghost hunting technology, but he could still operate most of the equipment. Valerie had kept up ghost hunting, but once her identity of the Red Hunter was exposed, she was immediately promoted by Nasty Burger Inc. to protect their headquarters in Boston. Last Danny heard, she and Tucker were going steady. Danny drove into the employee's parking lot, entered the building, and went into his office. Almost immediately, he got a memo asking him to come to the scanner room in which statistics for the ghost shield were located. The shield went up every night, and scanners monitored its surface and recorded the signature and velocity of every ectoplasmic manifestation that came into direct contact with it. As soon as he walked into the room, he was patted on the back by Damien. "How was your honeymoon, son?"

"It was really…eventful."

"She's pregnant, isn't she?"

"Yes, sir." Damien smiled knowingly and led Danny over to a large monitor.

"We had contact three times within the same thirty second interval."

"The power level looks the same all three times. The most logical possibility is that a ghost bumped into the shield and got angry. Then, it hit the shield a couple more times to try and break it and, upon realizing that it couldn't penetrate it, flew around it."

"That's what we thought as well, but our night security guard happened to be there at the time, and he said that there were three distinct ghosts."

"What did he say they looked like?"

"He said that they looked like three green vultures, and he could have sworn that he heard one of them muttering something about gefilte fish."

"Plasmius," Danny muttered, his eyes narrowed.

"You know who's responsible?"

"Vlad Plasmius. The three ghosts are his servants and he sends them on grunt work." Damien, who Danny had shown his records on all of the ghosts he had fought, new all about Plasmius and his powers.

"Couldn't he just teleport into the labs instead of trying to get his grunts to try and break the shield?"

"He could, but you've just stumbled on one of Vlad's greatest weaknesses-his dependence on servants. He won't do any of the dirty work himself when he could just send some weaker ghost to do it for him. This means that we can manipulate the servants and take advantage of him. I'll try and locate the birds before they can report back to Vlad. Oh, and if your sensors catch Phantom, try not to shoot him out of the sky again," Danny said, a grin playing on his lips.

"It's not our fault the defense system was on autopilot and hooked up directly to the scanners! Besides, I've already entered your ecto-signature into the mainframe so that the system disregards your presence, even if the scanner picks it up." They were referring to the first time Danny had taken care of a job for Axion. He was examining the exterior of the building as Danny Phantom for traces of Technus, whose signature had been monitored nearby. Unfortunately, the scanners found Danny's signature and the building's defense system had automatically started shooting about ten massive ecto-guns at him. Danny phased into the building and changed back just in the nick of time. Luckily, only Damien was in the room that Danny had entered, so his secret was still safe from the general populace.

Danny, sill smiling, faded out of visibility. Damien pressed the button that activated the security cameras outside of the lab. After a couple of minutes, Danny Phantom entered the field of view. Damien watched as the halfa floated around the exterior of the building, looking for clues. He spotted a large tree a few hundred yards away from the premises. He created a large shield of green energy and caused it to expand outwards. The shield harmlessly passed through any real-world objects (such as the tree) and only touched any ghost matter that it came into contact with (such as the three ghost vultures in the tree). Apparently they were debating whether or not to enter the building by day, since the shield was down. It was a simple matter for Danny to suck the three of them into the Fenton Thermos, and he immediately became invisible as soon as the job was completed.

Danny Fenton re-entered the security room that was now full of spectators watching the tape of Phantom working. They stared in awe at the spherical shield that he had summoned. "Whoa, Phantom's got a new power…" one said. When the clip continued to show Danny suck the ghosts into the thermos, another employee replied, "Yeah, but that trick never gets old." Danny coughed loudly, causing everyone in the room to turn around. He grinned and shook the thermos that contained the three ghost vultures. The original speaker looked incredulously at Danny. "I still don't understand it, Fenton. Why is it that Phantom always brings the ghosts that he catches back to you?" he asked. Danny just shrugged, handed the thermos to Damien, and returned to his cubicle.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. There weren't any ghostly encounters, so after he finished making sure the acto-guns that the security guards wielded were in working order, Danny pretty much had the day to himself. He strolled around the labs, looking at some of the interesting inventions that the scientists were working on. That afternoon, he offered to guide a class tour through the labs. He realized with a shock that the class he was guiding was the freshman class of Casper High, and that they were being chaperoned by none other than Mr. Lancer. Before he could dodge away from the incoming students, he was frozen in place by the cry, "Catch-22! If it isn't my former student, Mr. Fenton!" He put on a jovial face and turned around to greet his ex-teacher.

"Hey, Mr. Lancer, how's it going?"

"Oh, everything is just fine with me, Mr. Fenton. How have you been?"

"I've been doing pretty well since graduation."

"And what exactly do you do here?"

"I work with the security branch. I specialize in anti-ghost technology."

"Ah, so you've followed in your parents footsteps in inventing new devices?"

"Not exactly. I usually monitor the upkeep of the security guards' weapons, and sometimes deal with ghosts that decide to pay us a visit."

"I remember reading in the papers about a ghost dog that destroyed the labs several years back, right before Damien lost his job. Has that spirit come back?"

"Cujo? Nah, he disappeared for good the first time and hasn't been heard from since."

"Well, seeing as you named him from a Stephen King novel, I suppose that my lessons made some sort of impression on you. That is, when you were able to stay awake through them." The students listening in on the conversation laughed at this. One blonde student that was wearing the traditional Ravens red-and-white leather jacket even had the audacity to point openly. Danny smiled mischievously; the boy's resemblance to Dash was too striking for him to pass up an opportunity such as this one.

"Hey, you, come stand over here." Danny said to the student, pointing to a circular tile on the ground. "I want to show you guys one of our newest security features. When the system is activated and a ghost flies over the circle, it traps the ghost and holds it until the guards or Phantom can arrive and put it into a Fenton Thermos." Danny went into the adjacent (and thankfully deserted) room in order to activate the alarm system. After he did so, he morphed into Danny Phantom, turned invisible, and flew back out into the hallway. He thought, _It's lucky that only the exterior scanners have been calibrated to disregard my ecto-signature. The interior models, on the other hand…_

"Hey, wait a minute, how would the alarm work on me if I'm not a ghost?" The boy whined to Danny's retreating form. Suddenly, the students heard a humming noise as the security system activated. As they all looked around nervously, nobody noticed the boy's eyes flash green for a minute. Immediately, two small ghost shields formed that blocked the hallway on either side. An ectogun popped out of the wall and shot a blob of ectoplasmic goo at the unsuspecting jock, pinning him to the opposite wall in a massive clump of green goo. His eyes flashed green for another second, and then Danny Phantom became visible, standing in the middle of the hallway.

"Is there a ghost in the area?" he asked in his most heroic voice.

"N-no, Mr. Phantom, sir, we think the scanners just overreacted and fired on Billy here by accident." One of the terrified students said. The ghostly superhero shrugged.

"In that case, my work here is done." He said, and became invisible again. Three seconds later, Danny Fenton came out of the adjacent room.

"Did everything work out alright?" He asked.

"Mr. Fenton, I think that you need to recalibrate your scanners, they just fired on a human by accident."

"Well, they were designed by my dad; you know how jumpy he can be when it comes to ghosts." Mr. Lancer shuddered at the thought.

"Why, what happened, Mr. Fenton?" asked one of the students.

"Have you ever heard of the Fenton Ghost Peeler?" They all nodded.

"Well, my parents are Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, the inventors of that and any other piece of ghost hunting equipment that you see has the name 'Fenton' on it. My dad can be a bit trigger-happy (to say the least). A few weeks after the massive ghost invasion of 2003, which you all should have learned about in current events, Casper High tried having ghost drills. Mr. Lancer paraded through the halls dressed up as a ghost to scare the kids into doing the drill. Unfortunately, my parents were still patrolling the school, and when my dad saw Mr. Lancer, he overreacted and hit him with the ghost peeler. The costume came off, sure, but so did most of his clothes. Mr. Lancer ended up standing in the hallway in his underwear when all of the students were right there." The students fell down on the ground; they were laughing so hard. Mr. Lancer turned a bright shade of red and searched around for a topic that would embarrass Danny almost as severely as he had been embarrassed. His eyes alighted on the ring adorning Danny's left hand.

"So, did you and Miss Manson finally tie the knot?" It was Danny's turn to blush, although his face took on a slightly darker hue that the educators.

"We got back from our honeymoon yesterday," he muttered. Lancer turned around to enlighten the students as to what the two men were talking about.

"Mr. Fenton and another student, Miss Manson, were good friends back in high school. They were obviously in love with each other, but both were too thickheaded to admit it. Their potential relationship and whether or not it would advance was the cause of more ongoing bets than any other event in the school's history. When they finally announced their feelings for each other in their senior year, I won five hundred smackers off Ms. Tetzlaff." The students all turned to face Danny, waiting for an appropriate comeback.

"Well, it did advance, and we got married after we graduated from college and our first child is due in August."

"You're pregnant?" Mr. Lancer asked incredulously. "Already? YES! I just won another five hundred dollars! Take that, Tetzlaff!" He cartwheeled out of the building and left Danny and the rest of the students staring at his retreating form.

"Okaaay," he said. "Anyway, we've been working on some great new inventions here at Axion Labs. In fact, I had nothing to do this afternoon so I really just walked around the place a few times and looked at some of the things that the scientists are working on. Com on, I'll show you some of our newest products." With that, he led the students around the lab complex. His day was finished after the tour ended, so he got in his car, left the premises, and came home to the love of his life.

* * *

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM! 


	9. Ghost Bride

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

After work, Danny got in his car and drove back to his and Sam's apartment. He still drove the same car as in high school, and it was just as tricked out with anti-ghost weapons as ever. However, the ride home was ghost free, so he didn't have to use any of the cool weaponry. When he entered the apartment, he found Sam sitting on the couch, channel surfing. He jumped onto the sofa and snuggled up next to her.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"You know, the usual. Yours?"

"I had one incident in the morning."

"A ghost attacked the shield last night? Which one?"

"Actually, it was three. Plasmius three vultures all collided with the shield and were perched in a tree near the building."

"How did you get rid of them?"

"I made a small ghost shield and cast it through the tree so that it repelled the ghosts. It was pretty easy to get them into the thermos after that."

"I don't understand why Plasmius would send his goons into Axion Labs. Even if he couldn't just teleport into the building, he owns the company. He could just waltz right in if he feels like it."

"Damien said the same thing, and I told him that Vlad wouldn't teleport in because he just doesn't like doing grunt work-he feels that it's beneath him. The only problem that I see with him visiting as Vlad Masters is that his arrival would attract publicity, not to mention my attention, and he might want to keep his actions below the radar for now."

"We'll have to watch out for that. Anything else happen of consequence?"

"Yeah, they're working on a new type of solar panel that's supposed to be ten times as efficient as the current model; they already shipped a prototype to NASA and they're going to attach it to the International Space Station, but the brass say that we're going to make a real killing when it becomes available to the public."

"Great, we won't have to rely so much on fossil fuels. I'm glad that the company is doing something that's good for the earth for once."

"You're such an environmentalist, Sammykins," he said as he nuzzled her neck. "Oh, by the way, I led a tour of Casper High freshmen this afternoon, and you'll never guess who was chaperoning for them."

"Who was it?"

"Lancer."

"Really? How's he doing nowadays?"

"He looks pretty much the same. Actually, his goatee has some gray in it, but besides for that he's the same out-of-shape teacher that he was when we were his students."

"Danny, we were his students only five or six years ago."

"Yeah, but all the trouble we caused kept him on his toes. These new guys are making it too easy for him to grow fat and old."

"Trouble? We never caused any trouble in high school." Danny's eyebrow kicked up.  
"Changing the menu? Setting the frogs free?"

"Hey, I just wanted to make our school more earth-friendly," she said as she playfully hit him on the arm. "Anything else new?"

"Well, we do know that he can still do a cartwheel."

"What? He hasn't done that since he found out that we were together. Not to our knowledge, anyway. Did he win a bet again?"

"It's like you're reading my mind."

"Oh no…"

"What?"

"Did he bet Tetzlaff another five hundred dollars that we would get pregnant?"

"Yep."

"And you told him today and he was so happy that he cartwheeled out of the lab?"

"Yep."

"And are you totally clueless for repressing your feelings for me for so long that people started betting on us in the first place?"

"Yep-hey!"

"Looks like you need someone to keep _you_ on your toes."

"That's why I have you, Sammy."

"Don't call me that, Danny. You know I hate the pet names my parents made up for me."

"What's wrong, Sammy?"

"Danny!" Danny noticed a blush creeping up her neck and saw an opportunity present itself, one that he planned to take full advantage of.

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…"

"Danny, if you call me that one more time, I swear I'll-"

"You'll what, Sammy?" She poked him in the stomach.

"Ouch, Sammy, that hurt," he said in mock pain. She just poked him again.

"Okay, Sammy, but you do realize that this means war." A mischievous gleam appeared in his eyes.

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes, Sammy."

"Danny, for the last time don't call me Sam-" but she was cut off by Danny tickling her mercilessly. She tried to squirm away but he was too strong for her. Laughing uncontrollably, she rolled around on the couch and eventually knocked the two of them onto the floor. She landed on her back, and he came down on top of her with his face an inch from her own. Sam looked into his eyes and noticed that all traces of the childish mischief had been replaced by pure love and not a little desire. He leaned in and kissed her passionately, and she returned the kiss with fervor. Outside of the building, a powerful ghost floated next to the window and watched Danny wrap his arms around Sam. Plasmius disappeared in a flash of pink. His vision was filled with a pink and black spiral that spun into eternity for a minute (like those hypnosis spinners), and then changed to green and gold as he materialized in the foyer of his Wisconsin mansion.

"It's time for me to find my own princess. And I have just the spirit in mind." He phased downwards into his lab, and shot forward through the Fenton Portal. Plasmius continued in his current direction until he passed a purple door that was embossed with the symbol of a knight, at which point he hung a right. He stopped in front of a huge green door that was emblazoned with the head of a monstrous dragon. He shot a pink ghost ray at the handle of the door, which caused it to creak open. Plasmius looked down at the scene unfolding before him-it was a ghostly replica of a medieval kingdom, with a castle surrounded by small houses and farms, with ghost serfs tending to the fields and lakes. He landed next to an odd rock formation. It looked as though it had once been twin arches made of stone shaped like a spinal cord, each of which ended in the skeletal head of a dragon. However, one of the arches was broken; the dragon head lay on the ground below the arch. Plasmius walked down the path that lead to the castle that lay in the center of the serfdom. This, too, was decorated with a coat of arms that looked like two dragons whose fire blasts formed an X. Suddenly, he was accosted by two ghosts that guarded the castle. Both were wearing traditional medieval garb, one wearing a red hooded tunic and the other a tunic of blue. The red-hooded ghost carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. The ghost in blue wielded a massive battle axe.

"Oh, please." Plasmius scoffed. He made a single duplicate of himself, at the two identical halfas vanished. Each reappeared behind one of the guardian ghosts. They used energy attacks to force the ghosts close to each other, then each summoned half of a sphere that was composed of pink energy. The halves enveloped the two ghosts and fused, thus trapping the assailants in a pink sphere. The axe-wielding ghost slammed his blade into the sphere. Instead of slicing open, as was expected, the sphere delivered a massive electric shock to both of its prisoners. The two ghosts passed out, and the sphere disappeared and allowed them to fall to the ground unconscious. The minute they hit the ground, the large wooden door slowly opened. _That was almost too easy, _Plasmius thought.

The half-ghost entered the castle and immediately flew towards the throne room. The room was enormous. The floor was a massive emerald that was carved to look like the eye of a dragon. The stone circumference of the semi-circular room was decorated with canvas paintings of two dragons, one purple and the other blue. The dragons were depicted in various fighting positions, sometimes with each other and other times with invisible foes. The only flat plane in the room (besides the obvious floor) lay behind twin thrones. This side was decorated from floor to ceiling with a stained-glass picture. It showed the purple dragon, sitting on all four legs and breathing fire to the left, and the blue dragon in the mirror image of that position to the right. The twin tongues of flame coalesced into the coat of arms that had been on the door to the castle. Sitting on mahogany thrones decorated with colored cushions were two ghosts. On the throne to the left, directly in front of the purple dragon, a prince sat on purple cushions. To his right, in front of the blue dragon, sat his sister, a princess, upon cushions of blue. The two monarchs wore amulets identical to the emerald on the floor, except on a much smaller scale.

"I am Prince Eragon," the prince said.

"And I am Princess Saphira," the princess echoed.

"What brings you to our realm?" the two asked simultaneously.

"My name is lord Vlad Plasmius," the hybrid said. "I have come to this part of the Ghost Zone for one reason and one reason only." He turned his attention to the princess. "I have come to ask your hand in marriage, fair princess."

"Many have come seeking my hand, and many have been turned away. You may marry me, if you can pass my challenge," she replied.

"Very well, what is your challenge, my dear."

"You must defeat me in battle," she said, her amulet glowing green.

* * *

Brownie Points for anyone who can guess where I got the name for the princess.

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM!


	10. Vlad's Interlude

Three of you get brownus points (brownie+bonusbrownus...don't ask, my ninth grade Spanish teacher invented it) for knowing that I named Princess Saphira after the dragon from Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Trilogy.Enjoy the chapter!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom _or_ the Saphira from Inheritance. Princess Saphira is mine, though.**

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The amulet around Princess Saphira's neck began to glow bright green. Suddenly, she began to change. Her green eyes grew and took on a catlike complexion. Her tongue became long and forked. Then, she disappeared in a burst of blue flames. Out of the fire rose a magnificent blue dragon. Plasmius noticed that it was identical to the blue dragon that adorned most of the room. _So the purple dragon must be her brother,_ he thought. The blue dragon reared up on her hind legs and sent a blast of fire at the halfa. Plasmius extended his arm downwards and as he raised it up, a crackling pink energy shield popped into existence along the line his hand traced. The huge fire blast was a direct hit, but it was unable to penetrate the shield. Plasmius dropped the shield as soon as the attack ceased. He immediately created three duplicates of himself. The four ghosts all launched various energy attacks at the dragon, some using their hands and others using their eyes. The blue dragon screamed as the attacks made contact with her scaly body, but she recovered and began beating her wings rapidly. This created a strong wind that forced the three duplicates and the original backwards into the wall on the other side of the throne room. With a groan, the duplicates were sucked backwards into Plasmius. "That's it, no more Mr. Nice Plasmius," he growled. He sent three high-powered energy blasts at the dragon, and then teleported directly behind her. The blasts made contact, and then he touched her directly between the bases of her wings and delivered a massive electric shock. The dragon passed out, and Plasmius removed the amulet from around her neck. Once it was gone, the dragon transformed back into the princess. Plasmius placed her back on the dais that contained both hers and her brother's thrones, and summoned a ball of blue energy. He cast the ball in front of the princess, and it made contact with her and disintegrated around her until her ghostly halo turned a shade of blue. Once its job of helping her recover was complete, the energy dissipated and the princess's eyes fluttered open. She stood up and floated back to her throne.

"You have successfully defeated me in battle, Lord Plasmius. As such, you have earned the right to become my husband," she said.

"However, this does not make you king of the Ghost Zone," Prince Eragon stated. "My sister was second in line to the throne, next to me. Your union with her will only make you third in line for the throne."

"I understand," said Plasmius, slightly put off by this news. "But, while that is slightly disheartening, it was not the only reason why I ask your sister's hand in marriage. You see, I have been lonely for most of my life, unable to win over my first love. However, I have moved on. I would like to spend the rest of my days with someone. I want to marry for love, not just power."

"And what makes you think that you will love my sister, and she you?"

"Because we have so much in common. Believe me, Princess, you will love my castle in Wisconsin."

"Wisconsin?" she said, startled. "Cheese capital of the world and home of the Green Bay Packers?"

"The very same."

"That's wonderful! I love the Packers!"

"What?" Eragon asked. "How do you know about modern things such as these? We live in a realm that is eternally in the middle ages."

"Yes, we do, but that does not forbid me from traveling and seeing the world outside our realm. I have seen the human world, and have taken a liking to the sport that American humans call football, especially the Green Bay Packers."

"You see?" Plasmius insisted. "We were made for each other."

"Very well, I suppose you have my consent," Eragon said. He returned the amulet to his sister, and also gave her the ring that would allow her to take the form of a human while outside the Ghost Zone. Plasmius took her hand, and the two disappeared in a flash of pink light. They materialized in Vlad's castle, which at the moment was basking in the full moon that hung over the chilly Wisconsin night. Princess Saphira saw all of the green and gold decorations and spun around with glee.

"Oh, it's wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!" she cried. She put on the ring and assumed the form of a tall, blonde woman. She was wearing a blue dress that had a streak of green along one side. Plasmius transformed into his human counterpart and enveloped her in an embrace.

"And it's ours to share together forever" he said.

* * *

Yes, I know that it's short and not Danny-related. I just wanted to build up this segment of the plot before continuing with the main part of the story. Don't worry; I'lltry and get him and Saminto the next chapter. 


	11. Girl Talk

I forgot to mention in the a/n before the previous chapter-I got Prince Eragon and Princess Saphira from the Inheritance triolgy, but they weren't the only things. The dragon's eye-shaped emerald on the floor of the throne room was based off of the Isitar Mithrim, for those of you who have read the series and know what I'm talking about.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom**

* * *

Six months had passed since Vlad had brought his princess back to Wisconsin. He had not told anyone of Saphira's presence, mostly because the paparazzi would go wild upon hearing that Vlad Masters was no longer single. Finally, the preparations for the wedding were complete. The reason that it took six months was because Vlad had had to hire decorators, workmen, and such in secret, and they could only work at night. However, that was no longer of importance to the elder halfa. All that mattered at this point was that he and his bride were ready to be married.

It was an ordinary day for Danny Fenton. He came to his office and clandestinely vanished while Danny Phantom searched the premises for Skulker, whose ecto-signature had been recorded the previous night. His colleagues applauded him when he walked in holding the thermos containing the Ghost Zone's Collector of things Rare and Unique, and spent the rest of his afternoon inspecting the newest modifications to the space shuttle that Axion's scientists were working on. The new model was sleeker and more powerful that the older models that NASA was planning to retire soon. It got into orbit with half of the fuel that the original orbiters required, and with the new hydrogen cells that could run on even the lone hydrogen molecules that occupied the vacuum of space, it was capable of interplanetary travel. Danny drove back to this apartment to find Sam, who was reading the mail. "Anything interesting?" He asked as he gave her a kiss on the back of her neck.

"Nothing really, just a couple of bills, we're invited to Vlad's wedding, and that new credit card arrived."

"What was that?"

"A couple of bills."

"No, after that."

"That replacement MasterCard you ordered arrived today."

"No, in the middle!"

"What, we got invited to Vlad's wedding?"

"Yeah, that. This wouldn't happen to be Vlad Masters we're talking about, would it?"

"Yeah, the whole thing's happening at his castle in Wisconsin."

"He's getting married? To someone other than my mom? That's great! I'm glad he finally found someone."

"Me too. I just hope that the theme of the party is the Packers, for the sake of your sanity."

"My sanity? Aren't you coming?"

"Danny, I'm six months pregnant! I can't just up and go to Wisconsin!"

"Why not? If you really don't want to fly, I'm sure that my parents would let us come with them in the Fenton GAV."

"Yeah, and trust our baby's safety with your dad's driving? No way!"

"Well, we could always take one of our cars."

"We both drive tiny little sports cars. What if we get in an accident? We'll get totaled!" he looked at her analytically for a minute.

"What?" she asked, annoyed.

"It's definitely the hormones getting to you."

"What's that?"

"Come on, you think that you would have even stopped to blink twice if someone suggested that we head over to Wisconsin in a sports car seven months ago?" She sighed.

"I guess that it's just my maternal instinct kicking in. I never thought that I would be thinking like this, not in a million years. I'm afraid, Danny."

"What, that motherhood is going to make you soft?"

"No! That you won't love me the same way after I have this baby."

"Sam," he said, placing one hand on her bulging belly and wrapping the other around her waist. "I love you no matter what. I always have and I always will. Nothing can change that."

"But what if I become one of those moms that spend their days fawning over their kids and have no lives of their own? I don't want that!" he shrugged.

"Just look at my mom. Yeah, she loves us and cares about us more than anything, but she's still an active woman. She's a ninth-degree black belt and a ghost hunter, for pete's sake! If she can raise two kids and still have time to build some pretty advanced inventions and test them out on ghosts (notably me), I'm sure you'll be able to stay an individual come August."

"Thanks, Danny. You really know how to cheer me up," she said, softly. They shared a longish kiss. They broke apart, and the next time he spoke it was softly, his face an inch from her own.

"We'll take the GAV, but if you want then I'll insist that my mom drives." She gave a weak smile.

"That'll work," she said.

That Thursday, the young couple found itself on the road to Wisconsin in the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle along with Danny's parents and Jazz. Her boyfriend, Chris, felt bad about not being able to get the time off of work so that he could come to the wedding as well, so he decided to make amends by buying a wedding present on behalf of him and Jazz-an encyclopedia of various psychological maladies that commonly afflict new couples. It was a newer edition of the text that Jazz had tried to foist onto Danny and Sam six months before, but they had vehemently rejected it. _"Honestly, Jazz, both you and your boyfriend are in the top five of your med school class, and both planning on being psychologists when you graduate. Do you think that we'd consult some book if we had a problem when we can just talk to you two?"_ Sam had asked. Danny's present was much more personal. Skulker had tried to kidnap Brett Farve when he had come to Casper High to give a lecture of some sort a few months before. Danny had saved him, and out of gratitude the NFL star had autographed a football for him. Danny hoped that the ball would end up next to the one signed by Ray Nitzchke.

They made great time on the first day and covered hundreds of miles. That night, they parked the GAV at a truck stop for the night so that everyone could get a good night's sleep before meeting Vlad and his fiancée. While they were unfolding the mattresses, Sam tapped Danny on the shoulder. "Danny," she said, "is it okay if you and your dad sleep in the front tonight? I kind of need to talk with your mom and sister." Danny saw the worried look in her eyes and immediately acquiesced.

"Dad," he began, "Maybe the two of us should stay in the front tonight."

"Why's that, son?"

"It's just…we should probably stay close to the GAV's defense system, just in case a ghost tries to attack it while we're asleep. The two of us should do it so that we can let the girls sleep peacefully."

"Great idea, son! I always knew you had the Fenton's ghost hunting intuition!" Jack pressed a button next to the pullout beds and two sleeping bags popped out of the wall. He brought the bags into the front seats and began prepping the defense system.

"Thanks," Sam said, giving him a quick kiss goodnight.

"No problem. See you in the morning," he replied as he went to the front section of the GAV, sealed off the cockpit, and soundproofed the back so that the girls conversation couldn't be overheard.

"So, Danny," his dad began, "how is everything with you two?"

"Everything's going great. Sam and I are really happy together."

"I always knew that you would be. You know, ever since you were little, the two of you had a bond that was closer than that of just friends. Anyone who saw you together always said that they had a feeling you would end up together."

"And we proved them right."

"That you did. By the way, are you planning on staying in the apartment, or are you going to get a house once the baby comes?"

"We haven't really discussed it that thoroughly yet. Right now, the plan is that we'll stay in the apartment for as long as possible, but we'll definitely get a house if it proves too difficult to raise a child in the apartment."

"I don't know if that's such a great idea, son. Buying a house is tricky business; it'll be tough to do on short notice, especially with a young child tagging around."

"Well, we could always stay with you guys if it comes to that-"

"Of course, your mother and I will take you in in a heartbeat!"

"But if worst comes to worst, Sam's parents have pretty deep pockets. I'm sure that they could arrange something for us, but I don't want to have to resort to that."

"Good thinking. In-laws can also be tricky business. You know, I _still_ don't think that your auntie Elisha has gotten used to me yet."

"Not only that, I don't want to have to raise a family in a home knowing that I owe them for it. I don't want to have that shadow over us."

"Danny, you already owe them."

"For what?"

"For producing a daughter as smart and beautiful as Sam. That and not renewing their restraining order against you." Danny chuckled.

"That's true."

"Don't worry about that last option. If it turns out that you two do need to get a house, then you can stay with us until you can get a place of your own."

"Thanks, dad, you're the greatest."

"That's right! Me, Jack Fenton, the greatest ghost hunter in the world!"

"I was thinking more along the lines of greatest dad in the world, but that works too." His father laughed nervously.

"Enough talk, Danny. We should get to bed; I want the Fenton clan to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we meet Vladdie tomorrow."

"Why does that sound so familiar? But anyway, you're right, time for sleep." The two men slowly nodded off into the blissful oblivion known to us as peaceful slumber. Meanwhile, the three Fenton women were busily engaged in 'girl talk.'

"I just-I don't know if I'm ready to be a mother, is all," Sam started.

"Of course you are! I wasn't nearly as ready as you were when Jazz came along!" Maddie insisted. "In fact, when I finally found out it came as a total surprise to both Jack and me. You see-"

"MOM! I really don't want to know the minute details of my conception, thank you very much! Sam, that can't be the only reason you're nervous."

"You're right," the younger woman said with a sigh. "I'm worried about my relationship with Danny."

"What? Has he been neglecting you? If he has, I swear I'm gonna-"

"No, Jazz, he's been really great to me. I swear, he's the best husband a girl could possibly ask for. I'm just afraid that he won't see me the same way after the baby comes along."

"How do you mean?"

"I know that he wouldn't just leave me with the kid all day. He knows me better then that. It's just that I'm afraid that I'll become less and less his wife, and more and more the mother of his kids. I'm afraid that this child will come between us."

"Come on, you know Danny would never let that happen. He's head over heels for you; he wouldn't let a kid get in the way of that. He would treat your child as living proof of his love and devotion for you, because that's exactly what it is. The baby will just make your relationship even stronger."

"But I don't want caring for the child to make us more distant with each other."

"Sam, I think that you're just being selfish," Maddie interjected. "You don't want to have to share your Danny with the child. I'm not saying this to be mean in any way; quite the opposite, it's perfectly natural for a couple to feel this way about their first child. The baby will bring you two closer together, I promise. There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I know," said Sam, tears beginning to stream down her face. "But I can't help it, I'm still so worried…" Maddie climbed out of her bed and sat down next to Sam. The ebony-haired girl wrapped her arms around her mother-in-law and cried on her shoulder.

"There, there, Sam. Everything will work out, I promise." As her mother tried to reassure her sister-in-law, Jazz sat down on Sam's other side.

"Even if you're too afraid to show how you feel to Danny, you know that you can always talk to us, right?" she asked softly.

"Of course I do! You think I would have started this conversation in the first place if I didn't think that I could talk to you?" Sam snapped. She immediately looked mortified at what she had just done. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that, I…"she broke down as more sobs wracked her frame. "What if I lash out at my children like that? What if I make a mistake? I'll be such a bad mother!"

"Don't say that, Sam." Jazz reassured the younger woman. "You've saved Danny's sorry butt how many times? You'll be a great parent, there's no doubt about that."

"There's just one thing that I think you need to do," Maddie said.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"You need to be able to talk to Danny about these feelings. Of course you can always vent to us if you need to, but it's important for him to see how much suffering this is causing you. It'll make your relationship even stronger knowing that you can trust each other even with the most negative of feelings." Sam nodded as she extricated herself from her mother-in-law.

"I guess I should start now, then," she said. Sam got up and went over to the barrier that had come down between the front of the GAV and the back. She pressed a button on the side and the barrier rose back up with a pneumatic hiss. Sam entered the front and saw that both Jack and Danny were asleep. Danny had unzipped his sleeping bag and wore it like a blanket over himself as he slept in the chair; unfortunately it had fallen onto the floor. Sam could see the shivers that crossed his frame every once in a while. She sat down on Danny's lap and covered them both with the sleeping bag/blanket. She curled up with him and placed her head in the crook of his neck. His arms subconsciously snaked around her waist and met at the small of her back, binding the two of them together forever.

"Sam…" Danny muttered in his sleep.

"I love you too, Danny," Sam whispered, and fell asleep in his arms.

* * *

Ladies, you're better at girl talk than I am, so don't flame me for not writing it accurately! (grabs a wreath of garlic and hides behind his chair). Next chapter as soon as possible!

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM!


	12. Arrival

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Danny and Sam woke up at the same time. Too weary to want to move, the two snuggled closer to each other and sleepily opened their eyes. They found themselves on the road again, this time with Jack driving the GAV. He was still wearing his sleeping bag, which made the young lovers think that he had started driving as soon as he woke up. "Oh, thank God you're awake," he said, pulling over. "My internal clock got me up at 5:00 this morning and wouldn't let me go back to sleep, so I decided to get a head start on the road and I've been driving for the last three hours straight. Danny, do you mind taking over for me while I get some shut-eye in the back?"

"Sure, Dad, no problem."

"You're the greatest, Danny," the large man said as he lumbered into the passenger area of the GAV. Danny reluctantly extricated himself from Sam and crossed over into the driver's seat. The minute he sat down, Sam reached over and pressed the button that brought the barrier down between the front and the back, and soundproofed the front.

"What was that for?"

"We need to talk, Danny."

"About what?"

"This," she said, gesturing to her swollen belly."

"What about it?"

"I spoke with your mom and sister last night. They made me feel a lot better, but they also said that I should talk with you."

"Okay," he said. He noticed her swollen eyelids and spoke gently in order to get her to calm down slightly. "What do you need to talk about, specifically?" Her response was in a softer tone and filled with emotion.

"I'm afraid that you won't treat me the same way once I have the baby."

"Duh! I can't go around making out with you if there's a child present!" She laughed weakly at that.

"That's not what I mean. I don't want us to lose what we already have."

"We have each other, Sam, and I don't plan on losing you anytime soon."

"I know that, Danny."

"So what are you afraid of? I don't expect you to give up your career and independent lifestyle to be a stay-at-home mom. If you want to, then I'll accept your decision without hesitation, but I would never force something like that on you."

"Thanks, Danny. That means so much to me," she said. She looked down, her eyes welling up with tears.

"Sam, how long have we known each other?" he asked as he put a hand underneath her chin and forced her face upwards so that they were looking into each other's eyes. "You were always independent and tough, and you still are. Even if it means me quitting my job at Axion so that I can stay at home and take care of our child, I know better than to force you into becoming some 1950's yuppie mom (cough-since you'd kick the crap out of me if I even tried-cough)." She giggled.

"Well, these boots were made for kicking."

"But is that what they do?" He replied, quoting the old Jessica Simpson song.

"But if you don't be careful then they'll kick the crap outta you," she sang, changing the song to fit the situation.

"Are you feeling better now?" he asked.

"Just one more thing."

"What's that?"

"It's that thing I was trying to articulate earlier, about losing what we already had. I was talking about stuff like just now. That spark of life that we share that always seems to cheer both of us up. I don't want that to diminish over time because we're too preoccupied with raising the child."

"Sam, that spark will always be there. Don't you worry about that. I think what you're trying to say is that you don't want us to become like every other forty-something couple with kids whose lives revolve around them."

"Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say."

"Don't worry about it. You have to understand; almost every forty-something couple with kids was once a twenty-something couple about to have kids, just like us. Even though it seems like a quality of their lives has diminished over time, that's not true. It's just changed and matured. What you call the spark of life will just express itself differently as we get older."

"But I don't want it to! I want things to stay like they are now!"

"Sam, you know that's impossible. It's true that the expression of our spark will change, but so will we. And both changes will be so imperceptible that you'll barely notice as they go by. I guarantee that you'll be happy with who we become because we'll become that together and it'll be totally natural. I know it's weird, thinking about middle age already, but we'll gradually grow into it. I'm sure that it won't be so bad, especially because it'll slip in silently and we'll be living happily before we notice that it's even there."

"Okay, Danny, but only if you promise me that we'll be together for all of this." He took her hand in his own and held it tightly.

"I promise, Sam."

At that point, the intercom that connected the back to the front came on with a click, and Jazz's angry voice could be clearly heard coming through from the other side. "I know that you two lovebirds have a lot to talk about, but could you try and drive while you're talking? The rest of us kind of want to get there already." Danny looked around and was startled to find that they were still pulled over in the same place that Jack had left them in; he had been so preoccupied with talking to Sam that he had forgotten to start up the GAV again. Still holding Sam's hand tightly, he pressed the accelerator and merged his family's RV back onto the highway and drove it into Wisconsin while driving with only his left hand on the steering wheel.

When they arrived at Vlad Manor, the Fentons found that they weren't the first guests to arrive. The cul-de-sac driveway in front of Vlad's castle was already packed with cars. The family unloaded their bags from the trunk and approached the front entrance. Jack reached over and knocked on the cheese-shaped knocker. The door opened a crack, and after a second the gap widened to fill the entire doorway as Vlad and his fiancée welcomed his college buddies and their family into his home.

"Welcome, welcome, I trust that you had a safe trip over?" he inquired jovially.

"Yeah, V-man, the drive was pretty good. Now tell us, who's the lucky girl?" Vlad disappeared into the recesses of his mansion for a moment and returned, his arm around the waist of a tall, blonde woman wearing a blue dress, a large green ring, and a green amulet whose center contained an emerald shaped like a dragon's eye.

"Jack, Maddie, Daniel, Samantha, this is my princess, Saphira." The girl curtsied to each of them in turn.

"Isn't she a bit young for you, Vladdie?" Jack asked rather obtusely.

"Oh, don't be deceived by her appearance, Jack. I didn't marry some Playboy bimbo half my age; Saphira is older than she looks, she just takes great care of herself. Isn't that right, princess?"

"That's right, I have a strict exercise regiment that keeps me in tip-top shape."

"I'd love to know your secret," Maddie said. "I practice karate in order to stay fit, I'm a ninth degree black belt. What do you do?"

"Oh, pretty much the same. Maybe after these formalities are over we could spar in the training room."

"That sounds lovely!" Maddie said. Jack and Vlad caught each other's eyes and each bit back a grin.

"We'll both accompany you in order to referee," Vlad said.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want this little catfight getting out of hand," Jack added. The two women rolled their eyes.

"Uh, I don't mean to interrupt, but can we put these bags down somewhere? They're kind of heavy," Danny interrupted.

"Of course, Daniel. Since you and your parents are our guests of honor, you'll be staying on either side of the master suite on the fourth floor. It's the room with the large "V" engraved on the door. You and Samantha are in the room to the right, and your parents are in the room to the left. By the way, Samantha, how are you feeling?"

"I'm in very good shape, Mr. Masters, thank you for asking."

"Oh, please, dear, you don't have to be so formal with me. Just Vlad is fine."

"Thank you, Vlad."

"Anytime, anytime. Oh, by the way, I specifically set it up so that your room has an adjoining bathroom, in case you get the morning sickness. We wouldn't want you getting lost running around the mansion looking for a bathroom, now would we?"

"That's very considerate of you, Vlad, thanks again. Come on, Danny, let's get these bags up to our room." They each took a bag and brought it up the three flights of stairs. They were exhausted by the time that they reached the fourth floor, and barely staggered into their room. They placed the bags down on the floor and lay back on the queen-sized bed to rest their aching limbs.

"Vlad's been really nice to your family lately," Sam noted.

"Yeah, I think that he's finally given up being evil. After all, he did say that he was done chasing after us at the ghost's wedding, remember? And he paid for our honeymoon and everything."

"I know, I know, I'm just not entirely sure that we can trust him."

"Why not?"

"Don't forget, his ghost vultures tried to attack Axion Labs."

"That was six months ago. But I'll have a talk with him anyways, just to make sure that there's nothing wrong. I'm sure that it was just an accident of some sort."

"I'm happy that you can be so forgiving of him, Danny. It's really mature of you," she said, giving him a soft kiss on the lips.

"Hmm, maybe I should be mature more often." She hit him with a pillow.

"Or not," he said, grabbing another pillow and retaliating, thereby starting a small pillow-fight. However, all good fun must come to an end, and Sam ended the fight after a couple of minutes.

"Come on, we should go meet the other guests."

"Now who's being mature?" he asked sarcastically. She hit him one more time with the pillow and leading him out of the room and downstairs.

Danny knew that, as Plasmius, Vlad had a lot of influence in the Ghost Zone. He also knew that Vlad Masters was a world-famous billionaire. However, he had never really thought of Vlad Masters as a connected, influential person in the human world, at least not to the same degree that Plasmius was in the Ghost Zone. He had always imagined as him more of a Bruce Wayne personage-reclusive and eccentric. Therefore, Danny was surprised to find himself being introduced to legions of politicians, dignitaries, authors, scientists, businessmen, and other prominent members of society whom Vlad had connections with. He had even caught a glimpse of Sam's parents, who apparently owned a large amount of shares of Dalv Corp. However, Sam pulled him away quickly to meet the head of NASA before he had time to approach them. They were surprised to find that, as an up-and-coming agent of Axion and his wife, both of whom were on personal terms with Vlad, they were held in almost as high regard as some of the more influential guests, although they could not determine whether this was because of Danny's position or his friendship with Vlad. For example, it was slightly awkward for the couple, who had been invisible on their high school's social circuit, to be bowed down to by the Prime Minister of Chad. However, they were able to make the best of all the attention, and Sam even managed to best the CEO of a major tobacco company in a debate over the ethics of animal testing in front of a gaggle of senators who had, until that moment, supported the tobacco industry. Around midnight, the guests were given an itinerary. The ceremony would be held the next morning after breakfast, followed by a quick lunch then a golf/tennis tournament, and the reception would be held that evening. On Sunday, there would be a brunch before the guests had to go back home. After everyone was briefed, they all filed into a massive dining room for dinner. The meal (luckily for Sam) was dairy-intensive, although several people did notice that Saphira had eaten nothing but the little meat that was available. Once dinner was complete, everyone went up to his or her room for the night. As they undressed, Danny and Sam discussed some of the people they had met, trying to remember most of their names and wondering how Vlad could possibly keep track of so many connections. At the conclusion of the long, eventful day, Danny and Sam cuddled up together and fell asleep in each other's arms.

* * *

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM! 


	13. Saturday

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Danny and Sam's alarm went off at 7:30. Danny woke up to find Sam sleeping on top of him with her head resting on his chest. "That's interesting," he said.

"What's interesting?" she asked tiredly, her eyes fluttering open.

"Every time we wake up, we're always in the same position."

"What, you don't like it?"

"It's not that, it's just interesting that it comes so naturally to us."

"Why? Did you have a different position in mind when we started going out?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. He spun the two of them around so that she was lying on her back and he was on top of her. "How do you like this one?"

"Ow, Danny, you're so heavy, get off!"

"I guess ten years of fighting ghosts has made me a bit muscular."

"A bit," she said, running her hands along his muscled arms and chest. "Don't worry, though, one of us is still light."

"Don't flatter yourself; you aren't exactly pulling off the anorexic look while toting Junior around, you know." She glared at him. "I meant that in the most complimentary way possible."

"You'd better, if you enjoy only being half ghost," she said as she punched him on the arm. Danny rolled off of her and they went into the adjoining bathroom to shower and wash up.

"I've actually been wondering about something like that for some time now" Danny said.

"What's that?"

"Will our kid be half ghost, or a quarter ghost, or what?"

"I never really thought about it…I guess it depends on what element of your genetic structure makes you half ghost."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, if it's a specific gene that gives you your powers, then it follows that it can be inherited just like any other trait."

"That's not the way it works; I've taken blood samples to look at and my DNA is actually coated in ectoplasm. It's not like there's a specific sequence of nucleotides that makes me half ghost."

"And so your entire genetic code is half-human, half-ghost?"

"Yeah, basically."

"Okay, then that means that the baby got 23 half-ghost chromosomes from you, and 23 human chromosomes from me. It follows that a quarter of its genetic code is ghost material, so it'll be a quarter ghost."

"But what if the ectoplasm spreads to the chromosomes that it gets from you? That would make it half ghost."

"I don't think that that's very likely, but I guess it's possible. You should be able to sense its psyche, so you'll be able to tell once the baby is born."

"Or I could do it now," he said. He manifested a spark of ghost energy in the palm of his hand and placed it on her belly.

"Not yet, Danny." At her words, he took his hand away.

"Why not?"

"I want it to be a surprise."

"Is that the same reason why you don't want to know its sex until it's born?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." They got the temperature of the shower just right and stepped in. Danny held up a bar of soap to Sam and said, "I wash your back, you wash mine?"

"I think that it's supposed to be 'I _scratch_ you back, you scratch mine.'"

"Well, as we're kind of in the shower, I thought that washing would be more appropriate. Unless you want me to scratch your back, of course."

"No, it's okay."

"Good, I got a C when I took that course on back scratching back in school."

"You took a course in back scratching?"

"They were offering it for a credit, and I thought what the heck-it's an easy A."

"And you got a C?"

"My partner thought that I was being too sensuous with the back scratcher," he replied, running the bar of soap slowly up and down her back. Sam bit back a soft moan and instead asked, "Who was your partner?"

"We used dummies."

"Ah…"

"Is it just me, or is it starting to get really steamy in here?"

"No, I'm noticing it, too."

"Well, Miss Manson," he said, putting on a false formal tone, "I won't be able to shower with you anymore if you continue to cause the shower to steam up with your hotness."

"Danny, you know that I want to be called 'Mrs. Fenton' now."

"I know that, but it's such a weird feeling; when people say 'Mrs. Fenton' I think of my mom."

"It must be awkward at first," Sam agreed, "But I'm yours now."

"I know you are," Danny said, and walked around her with his hand dragging on her back so that he was facing her with both hands on her lower back. He leaned in and kissed her on the lips, then broke away and whispered in her ear, "And I wouldn't have it any other way." She ran her fingers through his wet hair and pulled him into a longer, more passionate kiss, the bar of soap long forgotten.

About fifteen minutes later, Danny and Sam stepped out of the shower and donned two white bathrobes, each of which had a VM embroidered on the left breast pocket. They heard someone knocking on the door, and Danny opened it to find a servant. "Breakfast for Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, courtesy of Mr. Masters," he announced, pushing a cart laden with food into the room. Sam rummaged through her purse until she found her wallet, and gave the man a generous tip. "Thank you very much, ma'am. By the way, the ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9:00 sharp," he said and bowed himself out of the room.

Danny immediately dug into a plate of bacon and eggs while Sam contented herself with a short stack of buttermilk pancakes. Danny had moved on to some of the more exotic pastries, quickly consuming a croissant, then a Danish, and he was about to devour some strudel when Sam hurriedly put down her knife and fork, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Sam, are you okay?" Danny asked, concerned. Sam shook her head and ran into the bathroom, where he could hear her retching. He sighed, put down his beloved food, and went over to the bathroom to comfort her. Danny came in just as she was flushing the toilet. He knelt beside her and patted her on the back. "How are you feeling?" he asked softly.

"Okay," she mumbled. Sam went over to the sink and began gargling.

"I hate seeing you in pain like this," Danny said.

"Really, it's okay." He gave her a questioning look. "I'm used to it by now. Besides, it'll all be over soon." He enveloped her in a bear hug and they stood there, silently contemplating. After what felt like an eternity, she broke away and looked up at him with a small smile. She gave him a soft peck on the cheek and said, "C'mon, we should get ready for the ceremony." They walked into the bedroom hand in hand.

They left the room about an hour later, Danny wearing a suit and Sam in a soft purple dress. As they proceeded down the hallway, they ran into Jack and Maddie Fenton. Maddie was wearing an actual teal dress, while Jack looked as though he had thrown a jacket and trousers over his HAZMAT, as well as the familiar blue-and-yellow striped tie. "Why hello, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton," Sam said.

"Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton," Maddie replied with a smile.

"I'm so happy for V-man." Jack said.

"Me too, I'm glad he finally found someone…else…" Maddie said the last word quietly so that only Danny and Sam could hear. The three of them shared a dark glance and proceeded down the stairs.

The two couples joined the throng that was headed towards the chapel, which was located on the second floor. As they entered the room, Danny's ghost sense went off. Sam shot him a sideways glance, but followed his lead in ignoring it, at least temporarily. They sat down in the pews and looked up to the altar. "Is that…" Sam's voice trailed off.

"I think it is." Danny confirmed. It appeared that Vlad's best man was none other than Nicolai Technus. He had foregone his usual trench coat and white cape and instead donned a regular suit. His skin was no longer green, but normal-colored, probably due to some holographic technology he had implanted before the ceremony. However, his rectangular glasses and ponytail were still present.

"Who is that guy? He kind of looks like Vlad, but a little older." Maddie said.

"His name is Technus, and he's a business associate of Vlad's," Danny lied quickly. To Sam, he whispered, "They're right, I never noticed how he looks kind of like Vlad with that hair. The only real difference is the fact that he's clean-shaven."

"It was tougher to notice before because of the green skin."

"Probably."

"I always thought thatVlad was closer to Skulker. Why isn't he the best man?"

"It'd probably be tougher to disguise a tiny green blob as a human than an already-humanoid ghost."

"He has the exo-skeleton."

"Okay, because disguising a seven-foot-tall robot is _so_ much easier." Maddie was about to ask what the two were whispering about when the ceremony began.

It was a quick service, and at the end everyone filed out of the chapel to change and then enjoy the benefits of the mansion, as the party wouldn't be until that evening. Maddie and Saphira made plans to meet in the training facility located in the basement in two hours' time to spar; behind them Vlad and Jack gave each other high fives.

"I'll get the spandex," Jack whispered,

"And I'll prepare the mud pit," Vlad replied.

Danny and Sam rolled their eyes and went upstairs to change into something a little more casual. Afterwards, they went out onto the grounds and decided to take a stroll through the gardens. They held each other's hand and slowly made their way along the foliage.

"I'm so glad everything turned out alright," Danny said.

"Why wouldn't it?"

"It might've been a plot to win over my mom again."

"Do you seriously still think that? Vlad isn't like that anymore."

"I guess you're right. After all, he did seem genuine at the Box Ghost's wedding. But he also said that he still wants me as his apprentice."

"But he hasn't tried to recruit you while we've been here."

"Do you think that he's really turned around? That he's not evil anymore?"

"I don't know. I would understand if he's having trouble giving it up. After all, twenty years of a certain mindset won't just disappear that easily. But I know that he's trying."

"How can you tell?"

"Because of Saphira. I believe that he's finally found someone more like himself. He doesn't have as much as an urge to be evil with her around."

"Yeah…I wonder if she's a Packers fan?"

"He wouldn't have married her if she wasn't." Danny laughed at that.

"When I saw her, she looked kind of familiar to me. Did you think so?"

"I know so. She was the one who organized that beauty pageant, back in freshman year of high school."

"How do you still remember that?"

"Are you kidding? You voted me the winner!" he blushed.

"That contest really meant a lot to you, huh?"

"It didn't mean a lot to you?"

"It did! You got kidnapped into the Ghost Zone to marry some prince! I thought I would die without you! Well, half-die. Again. Like, my human half dying. You know what I mean."

"Aww, Danny, that's so sweet!" he blushed again. Casting around for a new subject, he noticed the setting sun.

"C'mon, the party's starting soon. We should get ready." He led her back to the room.

Back at the room, Danny changed into his tuxedo, and Sam slipped on her mauve gown. They went down to the party, which was being held in the reception hall. They spoke with some of the acquaintances that they had made the previous night, as well as made some new friends. After about an hour, they ran into Vlad and Jack. They were standing with Saphira and Maddie, both of whom were blushing profusely. "I take it the mud wrestling went well?" Danny asked. The glint in the men's eyes and the death glares emanating from the women was all the answer he needed. The young couple went over to the dance floor and danced until Sam said she needed to sit down. They took a seat at one of the empty tables and watched the proceedings until they were approached by Vlad.

"Daniel, could you do me a favor? Go to my lab, second door on the left upstairs, and bring down a present I have for your father?" Danny and Sam glanced sideways at each other for a second.

"This is some kind of déjà vu joke, right?" he asked. Vlad laughed uproariously.

"Of course it is, my dear boy, of course it is. I'm such a josher! Enjoy the party, you two." He walked away.

"What was that about?" Sam asked.

"The first time we met, back when Vlad held his college reunion here, he asked me the same exact question. I went to the lab and Skulker attacked me and trapped me in the Spectral Energy Neutralizer, this cube that assembled itself around me. Once I was inside, it zapped me until I changed back into a human, and Vlad came in and exposed himself to me."

"That last bit sounded so wrong."

"I meant like him being half-ghost," Danny said, then he paused, realization of what Sam was implying finally hitting him. "Just the mental image of that is leaving a permanent scar on my psyche. I hope you're happy." She giggled.

"You sound so cute when you're being scarred for life."

"Thanks…I think."

"C'mon, I'm feeling much better. Let's go to the dance floor."

"Okay." The two danced the night away until the party began winding down. When people bean to leave the reception hall, Danny looked down at his watch and noticed with a shock that it was two in the morning. "It's getting late, we should get to bed."

"What are you talking about? I'm not"-she gave a large yawn-"tired." She finished her sentence sleepily and leaned against him.

"C'mon," he said, rousing her slightly, half-leading, half-dragging her over to the stairwell. He looked up at the four flights of stairs, then at Sam, then at the stairs again, and made his decision.

Danny emerged from the stairwell on the fourth floor carrying Sam bridal style. He put her down and leaned her against the wall while he fished around in his pocked for the key to their room. Danny unlocked the room, carried her inside and placed her on the bed. Blushing profusely, he slipped her out of her gown and underclothes and placed her under the covers. He undressed and followed her. Sam rolled around and one of her arms lay sprawled on Danny's chest, her head resting on his shoulder. It was in this position that they fell asleep.


	14. Sunday

Sorry it's been so long; I was on a class trip and didn't have acess to a computer. I'm free this whole weekend, so expect more updates on other stories as well!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Since the brunch didn't start until ten, the couple was able to sleep in an extra hour. The faint buzzing of the alarm woke them out of their deep slumber at 8:30. Unlike the previous morning, Danny came to slowly. "Five more minutes, Jazz…" he mumbled sleepily upon hearing the alarm. He was promptly hit in the face with a pillow.

"Jazz always woke you up when we were younger?" Sam asked, holding up another pillow threateningly to deter Danny from sinking back under the covers.

"My mom was usually making breakfast, and you know Jazz, always stuck in 'overprotective older sister' mode," a now-awake Danny replied. He rubbed his eyes and slowly sat up. "You totally crashed last night at the end of the party." He got out of bed and the two of them made their way to the bathroom.

"Yeah, I remember nodding off at the table."

"I had to carry you up four flights of stairs!"

"Why couldn't you just fly us up?" Danny paused for a minute, caught off-guard, but quickly came up with a response.

"There were people all over the place! I couldn't just go ghost in a crowd of people."

"Did anyone get suspicious of you carrying me up the stairs?"

"The CEO of Pfitzer laughed and said something about date rape pills, but I shut him up by asking him if he had ever had to use his own Viagra."

"Nice."

"Thanks." They entered the shower and Sam began soaping up Danny's back. She ran her fingers along his skin and felt innumerable bumps and scratches where scars were forming and healing.

"Whoa, when did you get all of these scars?"

"You know, random ghost fights. Most of them are from getting thrown into buildings, even though there are a few here and there that are due to ectogun shots."

"Who's been shooting at you? I thought that Valerie had promised not to hunt you anymore."

"This wasn't Valerie. Remember the first time I had to do a job for Axion?"

"Ah yes, when their security system attacked you?"

"That's the one. Most of the newer scars are from that."

"That can't be right. You heal so quickly-how can you have fresh scars from an accident that took place so long ago?"

"You're right, I heal fast. I stop bleeding and sprains and breaks patch themselves together more quickly than those of any human could. But in exchange, the long-term effects of those injuries heal more slowly. Scars and burns take longer to form than they normally would."

"Ouch."

"Not really; they're only scars, so it's not like they hurt that much or anything."

"Not ouch physically. I meant 'poor you'."

"Thanks for the concern."

"Hey, what are loving wives for?"

"Washing my back, for one thing."

"Shut up, you." They switched places and Danny began scrubbing Sam's back. This time, she couldn't help but utter a soft moan as her love slowly ran his hands up and down her back. Danny's ears perked up at the sound, and he slowed down the hand motions even more. Sam uttered an even louder moan. Danny was about to continue the process when Sam recoiled suddenly. She turned around to face him with a look of joy radiating from her heart-shaped face. "It kicked!" she exclaimed.

"Come again?"

"The baby! It kicked!"

"No way!" He placed an ear on her belly and, sure enough, he felt a short pulsation. "I guess we can't continue where we were going. After all, there's a child present." She sighed.

"I guess so." She said resignedly.

"Still, that's really great news."

"What, that we can't continue?"

"Nah, that it kicked. I still can't get over the fact that we're going to be parents in a few months. It's such a mind-boggling concept to grasp. But I'm so happy for us, Sam. You and me, raising a family together. The two of us being together forever, finally, and no longer having to repress our feelings for each other." He wrapped his arms around her and held her in his embrace.

"Yeah, I'm so happy for us," she said, putting on a happy face to hide her inner insecurities and doubts. The two of them finished their shower routine and stepped out, donning the same pair of bathrobes as the previous morning. They changed into semi-casual attire and left the room, where once again, they ran into Danny's parents who were leaving for the brunch at the same time.

"Guess what, guys?" Danny asked excitedly. "We were in the shower this morning, and Sam said that the baby kicked!"

"Danny, that's great!" Jack exclaimed.

"Yep, our kid's a fighter, all right." Danny replied. The four descended into the main dining hall and met up with some of their original acquaintances. After the brunch, they returned to their rooms to pack up their suitcases, and then started to leave the castle along with the other guests. Right before they left, Danny pulled Vlad aside.

"Hey, Vlad, I have something to ask you."

"Sure, Daniel, ask away."

"Well, a couple of weeks before we came up here, I was working at Axion and it turns out that your three ghost vultures had tried to get into the building in the middle of the night. What was that about?"

"Oh, it's nothing sinister, I assure you. I sent my vultures in order to look at the progress on some of the top-secret projects that my scientists are working on."

"And you couldn't just visit yourself, or at least teleport into the building?"

"I haven't been able to leave my castle at all for some time lately. It's been extremely difficult getting the building renovated and redecorated for the wedding, not to mention the fact that all of the preparations had been under the radar to avoid alerting the paparazzi."

"I see. Well, thanks for clearing everything up, Vlad."

"Anytime, Daniel. Anytime. Oh, and by the way, you're still welcome to join me. I know that you've mastered duplication but I can still teach you how to teleport if you like?"

"Thanks but no thanks. I can't abandon Sam or the rest of my life back home in Amity. But you don't need me to liven up your house anymore, not with Saphira around."

"Very true, Daniel. Take care, now."

"Thanks, Vlad. You too." Danny exited the mansion and joined the rest of his family outside of the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle.

"What was that all about, Danny?" Maddie asked.

"Oh, nothing. I was just talking to Vlad about Axion, but we worked everything out all right." He gave Sam a sideways glance and she returned with a look that told him that she understood. The Fentons piled into the GAV with Maddie at the helm, and began the trek back to Amity Park, chatting amiably about the party all the while.

Vlad Masters bade the rest of his guests goodbye and closed the large doors to his castle. He turned around to see his princess approaching him.

"Are they all gone?" she asked.

"Yes, that's the last of them." They each flashed a mischievous grin. Vlad lifted Saphira up bridal style and floated up through the ceiling of the foyer and through the next three successive floors. He landed on the fourth and stopped in front of the door that was engraved with a large 'M' on it. They each shared another grin as he turned them intangible and walked through the door.

* * *

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM! 


	15. It's Time

It's about time! I know most of you have been waiting for this chapter for so long, and now it's finally here! Well, I don't want to keep you any longer with my mindless blathering, so stop reading this author's note and get on with the chapter!

**Disclaimer:I do not own Danny Phantom, but I do own his kid!**

* * *

Three months had passed since Vlad's wedding. As he had predicted, the paparazzi went wild at the news that _Affluence Magazine_'s billionaire of the year was no longer single. They tried to find as much information as they could about his wife, Saphira, but the most perplexing thing was that they found nothing. No birth records, no family, no transcripts, no job records…nothing. They found that there had been a duchess in medieval England by the name of Saphira, as well as legends stating that her and her brother Eragon were actually dragons, but that was the closest resemblance to her name that anybody found. And there couldn't be any connection, since the duchess had lived about a thousand years ago, right? As the months passed and nothing interesting developed on the couple, gossip columnists began to leave them alone in favor of more, shall we say, active celebrities.

After they returned from the wedding, the lives of the Fenton Family returned to normal, or as normal as life gets for a family of ghost hunters, a half-ghost, and his wife. Jack and Maddie resumed working on their inventions, and Danny and Sam returned to their daily lives. However, for one member of the Fenton family, life was getting harder and harder. As the months progressed Sam felt herself becoming less and less able. She couldn't walk up a flight of stairs as easily as before; even walking around became a burden for her. She was always afflicted with the munchies; it seemed as though she needed food every few minutes. Of course she knew what was going on with her, and she tried to reduce the symptoms as much as possible. She would run three miles every day in an attempt to stay in relative shape. She ate larger meals, but tried as best she could to avoid the million little snacks for which she was craving. She found that while she could barely climb the steps to her and Danny's apartment nowadays, she always seemed to have enough energy to clean the kitchen, or the living room, or the bedroom, or the bathroom. Danny constantly hovered over her and tried his best to alleviate her suffering, but he just couldn't totally understand what she was going through.

At the end of three months, in the middle of August, Danny and Sam lay asleep at 4:00 AM. Suddenly, Sam awoke with an odd pain in her abdomen. She couldn't quite understand what it was, until realization hit her, making her eyes practically pop out of her head. _Those two little words that every future mother has to say to her husband. Those two little words that will change their lives forever. Those two little words that somehow always end up being uttered at some ridiculous hour in the morning. Now it's my turn to utter those two little words._ Her ruminations were interrupted by another sharp pain. "Danny," she said, shaking him.

"Wha-" he gave a large yawn, "Whaddya want, Sam? It's got to be four in the morning or something."

"Danny?"

"Yeah, Sam?"_ Well, it's now or never. Time for those two little words._

"It's time."

"Time? Time for wha…OH MY GOD!" He jumped out of bed and ran to the dresser, quickly putting on a shirt and pair of pants, and picking up his car keys, as well as grabbing a nightgown for her. He lifted her up bridal style and, holding her close, he phased them down through three floors into the foyer of their building. Silently offering a prayer of thanks that nobody was there at the time to see his intangible act, he carried her outside and put her in his car. He ran around to the other side and started the car, offering a second prayer of thanks that the car didn't refuse to start like some predictably corny TV show. He sped to the hospital as fast as humanly possible, offering yet another prayer that the roads were empty at that hour of the morning. He stopped the car in front of the North Mercy Hospital, got out, and carried her into the building. He walked up to the front of the emergency room where a triage nurse was sitting reading a magazine.

"Excuse me, miss, my wife is going into labor." The nurse looked up and pressed a button on her desk. A pair of orderlies came wheeling a wheelchair. Danny placed Sam in the chair and one of the orderlies wheeled her into the maternity ward. The other remained with Danny as he gave the nurse all of Sam's information, and then led him into the room where they had taken Sam.

She was lying on a bed wearing a hospital gown. She looked as though she was in a lot of pain. Danny couldn't help but feel incredibly sorry for having helped to make her have to go through with this. "Hey, Sammy" he said. She gave him a weak smile, which turned into a grimace as another contraction hit her. He held her hand tightly and whispered into her ear, "I know you can do this, Sam. I just know you can." The doctor came in and informed Danny that the birth wouldn't be for a little while; he should wait outside and they would call him back in later. He turned back to her, a look of mixed faith and pity etched onto his features "I'll be back soon, Sammy."

"Promise me you will," she said as she let go of his hand.

"I promise." He left the room and went into the waiting room, and paced. And paced and paced and paced and paced and paced. He couldn't sit down; he had to keep moving. So he paced. The waiting room slowly filled and emptied as people were treated and discharged, or sent to rooms for further treatment. One time an ambulance stopped in front of the building and a person was rushed in on a stretcher carried by paramedics. Having had experience in injuries due to his constant fighting, Danny could tell that the man was banged up pretty bad, but not so bad that he couldn't make a full recovery given time. A nurse recommended that he eat breakfast and come back, but he refused. He just couldn't bring himself to leave his Sam for longer than humanly possible. He looked at his watch and noticed that it was 9:00. He continued to pace. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, another nurse entered the waiting room.

"Daniel Fenton?" she asked.

"Yes, that's me." She tossed a set of scrubs at him, which he caught easily.

"Change into these; there's a bathroom down the hall, and follow me." He did as she asked and followed her into the room where Sam was. Her face was red and her screams were getting louder. There were two doctors rushing all around her. Danny leaned in close to her and whispered into her ear: "I could make this a lot easier for you, you know," She grabbed his hand in a pincer-like grip.

"No intangibility. I want to do this the natural way."

"I hate seeing you like this, it's tearing me apart. Please let me help you," his eyes began to water as he made his other hand intangible and held it in front of her. "Please."

"Are you crazy? You're facing exposure!"

"Exposure be damned! I'd gladly expose myself if it meant you not being in pain any more." Sam was about to respond but an extra large pain racked her frame. She gave a large scream and the doctors hovered around her, pushing Danny to the side.

"Push! It's almost here! Push!" One of them beseeched her.

"I see a head! I see a head!" the other one shouted. Sam screamed again, this time louder than ever before, and lay limp. One of the doctors held up what appeared to be a skinned rabbit. He slapped it, and it sucked in air and immediately began to cry. The doctor took the baby away to be cleaned, and allowed Danny to approach his wife, who was beginning to recover.

"It's a boy," the other doctor told them. "A beautiful baby boy." The first doctor came in holding the baby, who was swaddled in white cloths and wearing a blue cap. It lay sound asleep. He handed the baby to the proud parents and the two doctors exited the room in order to leave them alone with their child.

"I don't believe it," Sam said as she cradled her son. "I'm officially a mother."

"And I'm a father," Danny rejoined. "We're the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy. Sam, this is great. This is wonderful! We're a family, Sam, a family!"

"I know." All of her inhibitions; her doubts, fears, insecurities, all of them disappeared as she looked into the tiny face of the baby, _her_ baby, that lay in her arms.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"All right; still in a little pain, but I'm much better."

"That's the miracle of birth for ya." She rolled her eyes.

"Don't remind me. I never want to have to go through that again for a long, _long_ time."

"Are you suggesting…"

"That we have another? Maybe. But now is too early to decide. Right now we should enjoy what we have, relish the little bundle of joy that's laying here in our arms."

"You're right." A nurse walked in and asked if they had any ideas for names.

"hmm…" Sam thought, "How about Harry? I like that name."

"Me too. But what about a middle name?"

"Daniel." Sam responded immediately. "Harry Daniel Fenton."

"It does have a nice ring to it," he agreed. "So you have wished it, so shall it be." He turned to the nurse. "Harry Daniel Fenton it is." The nurse left the room to work on the birth certificate. And so it was that on August 14, 2012, Harry Daniel Fenton came into the world.

* * *

I decided to name their son Harry because before DP came out I was a really big Harry Potter fan. In fact, I'm _still_ a huge fan, but latelymy fanship for HP has been somewhat overshadowed (no pun intended) by that of DP. Andbefore you can even ask, no, I'm not planning any HP/DP crossovers. There are enough of those out already. Also, I gaveHarry Fentonmy birthday because I just love writing myself into my fics, as those of you who've read Alex Ghostly already know. Anyway, until next time!

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM!


	16. Our Secret

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Sam and Danny sat in the hospital room cuddling Harry between them. Suddenly, a nurse entered the room. "Mr. Fenton?"

"Yes, that's me."

"I think that there's something you need to see. Please follow me." Danny and Sam exchanged worried glances, and Danny got up and followed the nurse.

"We were examining your son's blood sample, and there was some sort of anomaly that none of our hematologists could explain. We were wondering if you knew what was going on."

"What exactly seems to be the problem?"

"Your son's blood seems to have green specks in it." Danny paused, knowing full well what the anomaly was, although not the full extent of it. The nurse noticed his reaction, and asked, "Do you know what this means, Mr. Fenton?"

"Somewhat. It's no problem really, just a hereditary thing. I just need to check the sample so that I can know the degree to which Harry is affected."

"You know what the specks are, then?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid that I can't tell you. It's kind of a family secret. Trust me, though, it's not harmful in any way."

"I see." She led him into the lab where a gaggle of doctors were peering over the screen of a SEM. Danny adjusted some settings on the microscope so that one of Harry's white blood cells appeared on the screen. He zoomed in until he could see the nucleus of the cell, and noticed that the entire genetic code was green, not just part of it.

"So he has it to the same degree that I do. Interesting."

"What is it?" one of the doctors asked.

"Nothing important. Just a genetic mutation that Harry got from me."

"Do we have permission to study it further?" another asked.

"No. This should remain a secret. The last thing we need is for it to get out."

"Do you have any idea what types of benefits this mutation of yours could have on mankind?"

"Try ghostkind," Danny muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Trust me, the mutation isn't harmful in the slightest, but it does need to stay away from the general populace. I forbid you to investigate further, and I beseech you to keep quiet about it. This secret should not leave this room."

"I don't like to do this, Mr. Fenton, but without your permission we are bound to secrecy. We have nothing more to say to you. Good day."

"Good day to you." Danny left the room and went back to see his wife and young son.

"What was that about?" Sam asked.

"It turns out that Harry is half ghost."

"So it's not a quarter, like we originally speculated?"

"Nope. I saw a sample of his DNA, and all of it is coated in green ectoplasm."

"Did you tell the doctors?"

"I just told them that it's a genetic mutation that he got from me, that it's not harmful in any way, and that they do not have my permission to investigate further or inform anyone else of what they saw under the microscope."

"So yours and Harry's secret is safe?" Danny looked down at his sleeping child.

"Yes. Our secret is safe."

Later that night, Danny had to leave the hospital. He noticed that most of the medical staff was giving him the cold shoulder, but for the most part he ignored it. Once he arrived back at their apartment, he made sure that the Harry's room was in working order, the crib was positioned correctly, the baby monitor would turn on when they brought him home, etc. He dragged his feet all the way to his bedroom, where the stress of the day finally caught up to him and he fell into a deep sleep.

At the hospital, Sam was not as comfortable. Harry had woken up and begun crying, and Sam had had no idea why. A nurse rushed in and explained that he was hungry, and proceeded to teach Sam how to breast-feed him. After a few extremely embarrassing minutes, they took Harry away from her and put him in that room where all of the babies sleep in little rows. Without her little Harry to keep her company, or her Danny to snuggle with, she felt extremely lonely. It was only after a couple of hours that she fell into a fitful sleep.

Danny entered the hospital the next morning to find Sam breast-feeding Harry. "I'll have what he's having," he said.

"Shut up."

"Tisk tisk, you can't use that kind of language when there's a child present."

"Please, you can't possibly think that he can understand anything that's going on right now."

"A baby's mind is like a sponge, Sam. They absorb anything and everything that goes on around them. That's why they sleep so much; their minds need to amalgamate all of that information in the form of dreams. It's also how they eventually learn how to speak and walk-by imitating what they sense us doing."

"Since when did you become such a baby expert?"

"Hey, one of us had to read all of those baby books that Jazz sent us."

"True." They looked down at their son, who had finished breakfast and was now sleeping peacefully.

"How much longer until you're allowed to come home?"

"Only a couple of days."

"Good, it's been really lonely without you."

"Yeah, same."

"Don't you have Harry to keep you company?"

"The nurse took him away and put him in that room."

"What room?"

"You know, the one where all of the babies have their own little beds and they're lined up in neat little rows with nameplates underneath the beds?"

"Oh yeah, that room. Do you even know what it's called?"

"Nope."

"Me neither."

"You should call our parents and Tucker."

"You're right! I was going to do it last night but I forgot!" He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. "Hey Mom, Dad, it's me Danny. Sam and I are at the hospital…no, everything's fine. In fact, everything's better than fine. You see, Sam had the baby yesterday…It's a boy…yeah, we're really excited about it also…sure, come over whenever you feel like it. Just don't bring any ghost weapons, I doubt the staff would let you in…yeah, you call Jazz and I'll call Sam's parents and Tucker…okay, see you soon!" He hung up and Sam gave him a quizzical look.

"Harry's half ghost, remember? I don't even want to think about what would happen if they brought some of their ghost-seeking technology in here."

"That's true. Here, give me the phone, I should probably tell my parents." He passed her the phone and held Harry while she dialed. "Hi guys…yeah, we're okay…Danny and I are at the hospital right now…Yeah, I had the baby yesterday…"she held the phone about a foot away from her head as her parents shrieked with joy. When it died down she brought the receiver back to her ear, "Danny's parents are coming over this afternoon…yeah, you can come this evening if you like…it's a boy…really? You're sure about this? Fine, if you really want to…all right, see you this evening." She took Harry back from Danny and gave him his cell phone.

"What did they want?"

"They want Harry to be circumcised."

"Okay…what does that mean, exactly?" Sam explained the ancient ritual to him. When she was done, his eyes were the size of saucers.

"They want to what? To his WHAT? Why?"

"It's some sort of ritual, I don't really understand the religious significance of it. But they'll hire the guy to do it and set everything up. All we have to do is bring him to their house a week from today."

"And it has to be when he's eight days old?"

"Yeah. Oh, and there's one more thing."

"What is it?"

"Well, if we want Tucker to be the godfather, then according to tradition he has to be the one holding Harry when it happens."

"Fine. I'll call him and tell him right now." He dialed Tucker's number on his cell phone. "Hey, Tuck, it's me, Danny…yeah, Sam and I are doing great. She had the baby yesterday…yeah; we're really excited also. It's a boy, so we named him Harry…uh huh…just one thing though, Sam's parents want to have this ritual performed and you need to be there for it…yeah, circumcision, how did you know? On second thought, don't answer that…well, Sam says that in order for you to be the official godfather, you have to be the one holding him when the _mohel_ does his thing…no, you won't have to come into the hospital, the ceremony will be performed at Sam's parents' place, but you can come and visit us before then if you want…she'll be out of the hospital in a couple of days…" he dropped his voice to a whisper, "Yeah, he's a halfa…no not a quarter ghost as we originally thought…I checked a DNA sample, and all 46 of his chromosomes are coated in ectoplasm…no, I spoke with the doctors and forbade them from investigating further, or telling anyone else about the anomaly they found in his blood sample…sure, you can talk to her." He held the phone out to Sam; she took it and spoke with Tucker while Danny held Harry in his arms.

Danny sat in the chair next to the bed, cradling his son. _I can't believe that Sam and I created this…this…angel. This quintessence of absolute perfection, this paragon of pure beauty. And we created it, together. I love her so much, both her and Harry. What I would do without them, I don't know. I'd probably die. I'm so happy for us; the three of us are a family, a real family. This leaping feeling in the pit of my stomach, it must be pure joy and happiness. You know what, little man? I promise, right here, right now, to always take care of you, both you and your mother. No matter what, I'll always be there for you, just like she's always been there for me. Believe it._ Sam hung up the phone and placed it on the bedside table. She was filled with a measure of peace as she saw the way Danny was lovingly cradling young Harry. Suddenly, a tear from his eye fell down and struck Harry square on the end of the nose. Danny's eyes widened perceptively, and he brought the baby over to Sam.

"Sam, look, he opened his eyes!" The emotion in his voice threatened to choke him off. Sam looked down and was startled by what she saw. Ice blue speckled with the purest amethyst looked back up at her. She cradled him and Danny draped his arm protectively over her shoulder.

"I love you, Sam. Both of you. And I always will."

"I love you too, Danny."

Harry gurgled happily.


	17. Human Visitors

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

The first visitors were Jack and Maddie. Danny was surprised that they were not bristling with anti-ghost technology as usual. He supposed that after Maddie's own experience with having children, she had enough foresight to prevent Jack from sneaking any large weapons into the hospital room. He also supposed that it was this factor that prevented them from making a grand, gun-toting entrance as was typical of them. They came into the room quietly and congratulated Sam and Danny.

"Oh, we're so proud of you both!" Maddie said.

"Yeah, but enough congratulations, I wanna see my grandson!" Jack interrupted. Sam held up the sleeping baby so that they could see.

"He's so adorable! He looks just like Danny did when he was a newborn!" Danny blushed at the comment by his mother.

"And he has the Fenton fighting spirit!" Jack proclaimed.

"How can you tell?" Danny asked. Jack puffed out his chest.

"It's obvious just by looking at him. This one's a fighter, all right."

"He said the same thing about both you and Jazz," Maddie whispered.

"And he was right, wasn't he?" Sam returned.

"Well, I, uh…hey Jack, do you want a cookie?" She tossed a chocolate-chip cookie into the air and Jack caught it in his mouth.

"mmm…chocolate chip, my favorite!"

"So are you three going to continue to live in that apartment of yours?"

"For now, yes. But we're not sure how long we'll be able to," Sam replied.

"You know that you can stay at FentonWorks for as long as you need to."

"Thanks for the offer, really. But we can always ask my parents to buy us a house if need be; we don't want to be a burden on you both."

"Oh, it's no burden, sweetie! Besides, you don't want to end up owing your parents for the house because frankly, knowing them, they'll use that against you to get anything they want from you." Sam laughed at that.

"Yeah, you're probably right. But also, I don't know if it's safe to keep a newborn at FentonWorks while you and Jack are testing your latest anti-ghost technology."

"Don't worry about that!" Jack said. "Our technology only hurts ghosts. Humans won't be affected by it."

"I'm not saying that Harry will be hurt by any of your weapons. I'm just saying that it can get really loud while you're testing them, and he won't be able to get any sleep."

"Hmm, you do have a point there. There have been a lot of explosions lately." Maddie gave Jack a death glare.

"What?" he asked. "Blow up the lab and most of the first floor one time, and you just can't let it go, can you?" She continued to glare at him. "Okay, two times."

"Try ten times, Jack."

"Okay, okay, so I caused a lot of explosions. I hate to say it, but maybe you should let Sam's parents buy you a house."

"Not just yet," Danny piped up. "That may be our only other option for now, but we should try and live in our apartment for as long as we can before turning to Mr. and Mrs. Manson."

"Oh, that reminds me, there's something I should tell you about them," Sam whispered something into Maddie's ear.

"Really? They want to go through with it? Well, we'll be there, all right."

"What is it, Maddie?" Jack asked.

"Nothing, dear. The Mansons are just having a little party seven days from now and Sam wanted to know if we'd be there."

"That depends. Will there be food?"

"Of course there'll be food, Mr. Fenton. Don't you worry about that," Sam said.

"Then you can count on Jack Fenton being there!"

"Do you know who Harry's godparents are going to be yet?" Maddie asked.

"We're thinking of naming Tucker his godfather."

"That makes sense. The three of you were thick as thieves back when you were children."

"Yeah, just like me and Vladdie! That's why I made him yours and Jazzie's godfather!"

"WHAT! _Vlad's_ my godfather? Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"You never asked."

"True." Harry opened his eyes and gurgled happily again. The four adults in the room immediately turned their attention to him.

"Look at his eyes! They're like both of your eyes put together!" Maddie exclaimed. The baby reached out a pudgy hand and tugged on the glove of Jack's HAZMAT suit. He pulled it off and waved it around.

"See?" Jack shouted. "This one's got the Fenton fighting sprit in him! He'll be a professional ghost hunter when he grows up, just like his grandpa, you wait and see!" Unfortunately, the man's booming voice scared Harry and caused him to start crying. Sam soothed the baby as she rocked him back and forth in her arms, and eventually calmed him down. The newborn finally settled down and drifted back to sleep.

"You see, Jack?" Maddie accused angrily. "That's why they can't live at FentonWorks with us. That's why they'll have to turn to Sam's parents. By the way, Sam, are your parents coming to visit anytime soon?" Sam checked the clock on Danny's phone that had been left on the bedside table. It was early evening.

"Yeah, they should be here pretty soon."

"We should go, then. We don't want to get in the way of their happiness."

"No, don't go! You don't have to if you don't want to!" Sam argued, not wanting to have to be left alone with her parents.

"Sorry, Sam. It's a grandparent's prerogative to see their newborn grandchild without any interference. I wouldn't want to deprive anyone of that, even if it is your parents."

"So we'll see you next week, then?" Danny asked.

"Yup. See you in a week." Danny's parents left the room and Danny sat back down in the chair next to Sam's bed.

"I hate having to rely on your parents, but I guess we have no choice."

"Don't worry, Danny. We'll try and make it work in our apartment for as long as possible. Besides, nobody said that we can't just take out a mortgage and get a house on our own."

"Actually, someone did. My dad and I were talking about this on the way to Vlad's wedding a few months ago. He mentioned that shopping for a house is difficult enough without a young child tagging along. Buying a house while trying to fit in work and caring for Harry will be almost impossible."

"Wow, I haven't even thought about work! Do you think that I should go back or stay home with Harry?"

"That's your choice. I do know that you have about a month before you have to go back, if you so choose. But I should probably remind you that before Harry was born, you were really worried that he would cause you to become a stay-at-home mom."

"I remember that." She looked down at her sleeping son for what seemed like an eternity. "But that was then. Now I'm having second thoughts. I can't just leave an angel like him at home all day, and it's not like I can bring him to work with me."

"Sam, think about what you're doing. Before you decide to give up your job for good, make sure that it's really what you want to do. You know that I'll quit to stay home and take care of Harry so that you still have your independence. I don't want you to bind yourself to him without being absolutely sure that you're ready to."

"Thanks, Danny. That means so much to me; I know how much you love your job at Axion. But I've made my decision. I'm going to quit my job and stay at home to raise our child-"

"I'm really proud of you, Sammy. That's real mature of you."

"-But try and get me to go to a PTA meeting and I'll tear your head off with a rusty spoon." Danny laughed.

"That's what I love about you, Sammy. So spunky." It was at that moment that Sam's parents entered the room. The spotted the baby and immediately hovered over him and Sam, pushing Danny aside.

"Aww, he's so cute!" Sam's mother cooed. Harry's face twitched, as though he was having a bad dream.

"Would you look at that? Our first grandchild. This is one of the happiest moments of our lives." Her father said. Harry's face twitched again. Sam's father pulled out a camera and shoved it into Danny's hands. "Take a picture of us, would you?" he demanded. He and Sam's mother each leaned in on an opposite side of Sam's bed. Danny got the camera in a good position and snapped the photo. The camera was a Polaroid, and so they only had to wait a couple of minutes for the picture to develop. Danny took one look at the picture and began laughing hysterically. Sam, wondering what was going on, grabbed the picture from out of his hands and looked at it. She also immediately began laughing. In the picture, Harry's face was contorted in mid-twitch. Sam's parents either didn't notice or didn't care.

Sam's father tried to get the baby to open his eyes by tickling the bottom of his chin. Harry did open his eyes-and began bawling. Sam tried to calm him down, but he just wouldn't stop crying. His screams became louder and louder.

"Maybe we should just go," Sam's mother shouted over the sounds of Harry's sobs.

"That would be nice," Danny muttered under his breath.

"We'll see you three in a week!" Sam's father said, and the two immediately left and closed the door behind them. As soon as the door closed, Harry stopped crying and began laughing. Sam and Danny stared at each other for a good minute or so and then laughed as well.

"Looks like we've got a real trickster on our hands," Sam said in-between gasps for breath.

"Yeah, we'll have to watch out for that," said Danny as he picked himself up off the floor; he had fallen down, he was laughing so hard.

"He seems to be able to read people pretty well, though," Sam noted.

"Yeah, I'll say."

The following evening brought Valerie, who dragged Tucker into the room. Apparently, they had both gotten off of school and work for the rest of the week, but he hadn't wanted to visit just yet because it involved going to a hospital. It had taken quite a few threats on Valerie's part to finally get him to come and visit, but upon seeing Harry, he was glad that he had come. "Hey, there's my little godson. Say hello to your Uncle Tucker!" he paused, and then spontaneously broke out laughing.

"What's up, Tuck?" Danny asked.

"Uncle...Tucker!" he managed to get out in-between bouts of laughter.

"So, what about it?"

"It sounds…just like…that old song…you know, the one that goes-"

"Okay," Sam interrupted. "We don't need that kind of language with a child present."

"Earmuffs?" Tucker suggested.

"You're hilarious."

"What color are his eyes?"

"They're blue, like Danny's, and they're speckled with purple, like mine."

"That's so cool! Maybe he'll wake up and we can see for ourselves!"

"Don't force him," Danny warned. "After all, he's got the Fenton fighting spirit, as Sam's dad found out yesterday."

"Why, what happened?"

"Oh, that's right, we never told you! Well, yesterday both my parents and Sam's parents came to visit, but at different times. When my parents came, Harry was all happy and excited. He took my dad's HAZMAT glove off and started playing with it, and my dad claimed that he had the Fenton fighting spirit. After they left, Sam's parents came to look at Harry but he had gone back to sleep by then. And it was the funniest thing; every time they came close his face would do this weird twitch-thing, as though he knew who was there. Sam's dad wanted me to take a picture of the two of them with Sam and the baby, and when it came out, it showed Harry's face in mid-twitch. Sam and I cracked up, but I guess her parents just didn't notice."

"What's that got to do with a fighting spirit, though?"

"I'm getting to that. After we took the picture, Sam's dad tried to tickle Harry so that he'd wake up, and Harry started _bawling_. I mean, really, really, loudly. And he wouldn't calm down. He had cried once when my parents were here, but Sam was able to calm him down after something like five seconds. But this time he just got louder and louder. Sam's parents got so scared that they practically ran out the door, and the second they left, Harry stopped crying and started laughing. It was as though he had set the whole thing up just to scare her parents away. It was hilarious!"

"Yep, this kid's got 'Fenton' written all over him." Tucker said.

"Speaking of which," Valerie interrupted, "Is he, you know, half ghost also?" Tucker and Sam each shot her mean looks, but Danny simply explained the situation to her.

"Yeah, we think he is. A couple of days ago a nurse came in and asked me to have a look at Harry's blood sample because there was some sort of anomaly that was stumping all of the hematologists. I had a look in the microscope, and his DNA looked just like mine, not just half of mine. I think that he's fully a halfa, not just half of a halfa, if that even makes sense."

"Bloody massacre of the English language aside, I get what you're trying to say," Valerie responded. "So are we invited to this party the Mansons are having?"

"Tucker has to come, but you're welcome to if you'd like."

"Why does he have to be there?"

"In order for him to be Harry's legal godfather, he has to hold him during the ceremony." Sam answered.

"Ceremony? I didn't know that there was a ceremony attached! What kind of ceremony is it gonna be?"

"You mean Tucker never told you? I think we'll leave him to do it, then." Valerie turned to the chocolate-skinned man.

"What kind of ceremony are we talking about here?"

"Well, there's gonna be this guy, right? And he has to…well….he's gonna take a…and, well…" he began to blather nonsensically and gesticulate wildly before he finally calmed down. "Ugh, I can't bring myself to describe it. It's going to be a circumcision."

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?"

"Because all of the guys I spoke to about it kind of have a soft spot where that's concerned."

"And who did you ask about it?"

"Oh, a couple of my frat-buddies." They all stared quietly at Harry silently for a minute. Suddenly, the baby woke up with a soft yawn.

"Aww, he's so adorable," Valerie exclaimed.

"And you're right about the eyes-ice-blue like Danny's speckled with purple like Sam's." said Tucker.

"Actually, it's more of an amethyst," Valerie corrected.

Once again, Harry playfully reached out one of his pudgy little hands. This time, though, he grabbed Tucker's glasses. "Hey, I need those," the techno-geek said as he cast his hands around, blindly searching for the spectacles.

"You should've gotten contacts," Sam admonished. "But look, I think that he's feeling generous today." It was true; Harry was holding the glasses back out to Tucker. The man gratefully took his glasses back and gave his godson a high-five.

"He's not as evil as his mother," he noted.

"You know I can still kill you in about a thousand different ways two days after having given birth, right?" Sam casually asked him.

"I'll shut up now."

"That's what I thought you said."

"When are you two going to settle down?" Danny suddenly asked.

"What are you talking about, Danny?" Tucker responded.

"You and Valerie. When are you guys going to get married and raise a family of your own?"

"Not everyone knew that they were in love by the age of five like you two, Danny. The rest of us can't exactly plot out the rest of our lives that easily."

"I realize that, but at the same time I can tell that you two are going to have a future together."

"He's right," Sam said. "It may not be as obvious as it was with Danny and I back in high school, but anyone can tell that you two were made for each other."

"Well, I didn't plan on having kids until after graduate school, but I guess we could get married before then," Tucker said. "Fine." He got down on one knee and pulled a ring out of his pocket. "Valerie Grey, will you marry me?" Valerie looked taken aback by his abruptness. Not the question itself, merely the manner in which it had been thrust upon her.

"Sure I'll marry you, Tucker." She pulled him into an upright position and into a kiss. Harry happily clapped his hands together while Danny and Sam exchanged dark looks.

"See, even our godson approves of us. What's with you two?" Tucker asked, noting the looks on his best friends' faces.

"What, you thought we were the only ones people were betting on?"

"I'm not following you."

"Ever since Valerie agreed to take you to the dance back in ninth grade there's been a betting pool that you two would get together. And we've had a decent amount of cash invested in that pool."

"How much cash are we talking here?"

"Enough to sent little Harry here to college."

"No way!"

"Way."

"How could you two do this to us?"

"Oh, come on, it's not like you and everyone else we know wasn't doing the same exact thing to us!"

"That's true. How long have you been betting again?"

"About nine years now."

"Whoa…"

"Wait a minute," Valerie interrupted. "Why were you carrying that ring around in your pocket?" Tucker shrugged.

"You never know when the perfect opportunity might present itself." Valerie laughed.

"I guess so. After all, here we are, sitting in a hospital room visiting Danny, Sam, and their first child. How much more of a random situation to propose could we have found ourselves in?"

"We could have been fighting a technology-manipulating ghost that had taken over your dad's super satellite while in geosynchronus orbit."

"Also true." She turned to Danny. "I'm glad that we're not fighting like that anymore."

"Me too," he responded. "But from what I've heard, you haven't totally given up ghost hunting. Tucker tells me that Nasty Burger inc. has found a niche for your particular field of expertise."

"Yeah, finally Plasmius weapons are being put to some good use."

"You can say that again."

"And don't think that I'm not gonna forget this either," the ghost hunter said, turning back to her fiancée. "You do realize that you're never going to live down the fact that you proposed to me in a hospital." Tucker shrugged.

"At least I'm not the patient this time around."

"You mean the last time you proposed to me you were a patient here?"

"You know what I'm trying to say."

"Yeah, I just love messing with you." She ruffled his beret.

"C'mon, we should probably finish unpacking back at the hotel." He took her hand and began leading her out of the room. "We'll see you guys later, okay?"

"K, see you later." A couple of minutes after they left, a nurse came and informed them that she had to take Harry back to his bed. The couple reluctantly gave up their newborn son and turned to face each other.

"I never really got a chance to tell you," Danny began, "how proud I am that you decided to give up your job just to be with Harry."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm placing blame on the excess estrogen."

"No, really. I think that we're both becoming a little more mature."

"Unfortunately. Although I have to admit we _were_ acting like overly hormonal teenagers before Harry was born. Not a good environment to raise a child in." She paused for a minute. "Is this what you were talking about that night in the GAV? About that spark between us not dimming, just changing, and us changing with it?"

"Sort of." He stopped to give her a soft kiss on the lips. "But some aspects of our relationship will never change." She wrapped an arm behind his head and tangled her fingers in his messy hair, pulling his head close to her own.

"You got that right, hero," she said before pulling her Danny into a longer, more passionate kiss.

* * *

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM! 


	18. Ghostly Visitors

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Today, when Danny entered Sam's room, it was not his son who was having breakfast, but his wife. Sam put down the plate of mush she was attempting to eat and grimaced at him.

"Hospital food's vile. But feels good knowing that I won't be barfing it back up in a couple of minutes."

"Luckily, I managed to sneak something past the nurses standing guard outside," he said, holding out a corn muffin.

"Oh, Danny! Food! Real food! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"It's okay, Sam, relax and eat it already." But he needn't have bothered reminding her; only crumbs remained in Sam's open palm by the time he had finished his sentence.

"Hungry, are we?"

"See, that's why I took the time to explain the whole, 'hospital food's vile' thing."

"Next time I'll try to bring something a little more substantial. Now, how's our son doing today?"

"Harry's been really well. He still sleeps most of the day, but he barely cried at all since you left."

"Good, I'm glad to hear it." Suddenly, Danny's ghost sense went off. He couldn't help but notice a needle-thin wisp of colorless steam come out of Harry's nose. "Don't they realize that this is kind of a personal time for me?" he asked as he stood up to go ghost and simultaneously extend his consciousness around until he could pinpoint the direction of the specter. Once again, his actions proved superfluous, as the spectral visitor came to him in the form of the Box Ghost, who phased down through the ceiling. "You again?" he asked. "You really can't ever leave me alone, can you?"

"I am the Box Ghost, and we have come for you, halfa!" Danny noticed that he looked different, more powerful. He wasn't as built as in the alternate version of the future, or missing his hand and eye, but he _was_ composed of more muscle than fat. However, based on his introductory speech, he seemed to be the same bumbling nuisance of a ghost that he always had been, muscles or no muscles.

"Hold on, _we_? Since when are you as powerful as Plasmius and I in that you're able to make duplicates of yourself."

"They are not duplicates, but family. See for yourself. And fear me!" he added as an afterthought. As he said it, a small, blue, ebony-haired ghost girl phased through the ceiling above him and came to a halt floating three inches above the floor to his right. She had red eyes and two black pigtails that jutted out on either end of her blue cap. She wore blue overalls and a pink-checkered shirt underneath, as well as a pair of yellow rubber gloves. Danny had seen her once before, when Clockwork had intervened to prevent him from cheating on the CAT.

"Box Lunch?" the hybrid asked suspiciously.

"That's right!" The ghost girl answered. "I am Box Lunch. The daughter of the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady!"

"Speaking of, where is she?" Box Lunch's eyes began to water and she nervously looked at her father.

"Ghosts…are different from humans," he explained. "We are not composed of living energy as you are, so we cannot create new life without some sort of energy sacrifice of our own. Our kind cannot reproduce without eliminating our own spirit…. My Lunch Lady…passed on once our daughter was born to us. She gave up her energy and faded away into nothingess so that Box Lunch could come into existence. This is why there are not many ghost children in the Ghost Zone-not many ghosts are willing to give up their afterlife to bring something new into being."

"That's terrible," Sam muttered sadly.

"Yeah, is there anything I can do? Can I give up some of my own energy to revive her?"

"We thank you for the offer, halfa, but this is not possible. We have come because we have a request of you of a different sort."

"What kind of request?"

"I would like you to be the ghostfather of my daughter."

"The whatfather?"

"The ghostfather. The position is virtually the same as that of your human godfather, except that circumstances may require you to come to the Ghost Zone every once in a while to make sure that everything's all right."

"You do realize that I'm the most wanted ghost in the Ghost Zone, right? If I go in at any time when there's no truce in effect, I'm more-dead meat."

"Ah, but if you traverse our Zone on ghostfatherly duties, you are exempt from Walker's rules." Danny thought about this. He realized that, after what had happened to the Lunch Lady, he felt as if he owed it to the Box Ghost to accept the request. Even if he had to go into the Ghost Zone every once in a while, it couldn't possibly be that often, and even then the excursions wouldn't have to last long. Besides, he was free from Walker's laws while in the Ghost Zone anyway on these errands.

"I accept," he said. As soon as he said it, Box Lunch was surrounded by an aura of blinding white light. When it disappeared, Danny's flying DP symbol appeared on the front of the ghost girl's hat.

"Thank you, Phantom! We are forever in your debt! Beware!" With his signature battle cry, the Box Ghost and his daughter became intangible and flew away, most likely to the Fenton Portal. Just to make sure, though, Danny followed them with a tendril of his consciousness and only retracted it once they reached the portal.

"Why did you accept?" Sam asked angrily.

"A few reasons. One, I felt bad about what happened to the Lunch Lady-"

"But that's no reason to become her daughter's ghostfather!"

"Two," Danny plowed on, "maybe her and the Box Ghost will finally start leaving me alone now that we're somewhat related." He paused to grimace for a second. "Geez, I never considered being related to the Box Ghost. Yikes."

"Well, there's nothing you can do about it now," Sam said smugly.

"Yeah, I suppose. Now, aren't you supposed to be getting out of the hospital today?"

"Once you step out of the room, a nurse that's standing outside will wheel me into another room where they'll perform a few more tests on Harry and I. Once they're done, we can go."

"Did you notice his ghost sense go off?"

"Yeah, I saw that. Isn't it cute?"

"Yeah, he's adorable. Absolutely adorable." He wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulder and watched his newborn son for a minute before a thought struck him. "I wonder if he'll exhibit any more ghost powers anytime soon."

"Well, the ghost sense is really passive-you can't control it, it just happens. The rest of your powers don't activate unless you want them to, so it should be the same with Harry. His ghost sense will go off, but he probably won't be able to go intangible or invisible, and he definitely won't be able to access his ghost form, until he wills it to happen. Which will hopefully be under your tutelage."

"How wouldn't it be under my tutelage?"

"If he suddenly makes his hand intangible while sitting in English or something."

"Oh. Good point. Now, I'm not going to delay your incarceration here any longer than absolutely necessary, so if you'll excuse me for a moment," he stepped out of the room and allowed the nurse to bring Sam and Harry into the larger examination room.

* * *

To those of you who've asked me in your reviews, no I'm not sure how long I plan on going with this. I'm really having a lot of fun with it, so I'll keep going for as long as I feel like. I realize that this latest chapter was on the short side, but I wanted to get it over with before finally bringing the lovebirds and their little bundle of joy back to their apartment. As we speak I'm working on chap. 19, and I'll try to make it longer. Kay?

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM!


	19. Circumcision

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Once the final tests were complete, Sam and Harry were free to go home. Danny led his wife and son out of the air-conditioned hospital and into the outside world. This being mid-august in the middle of a heat wave, the outside temperature was in the triple digits. The abrupt change in temperature and humidity caused little Harry to begin gasping for air, though he remained asleep. Danny and Sam looked at him worriedly, and rushed over to the car so that they could turn on the air conditioning. Danny flicked on the fans while Sam buckled Harry into the car seat, and the couple got into the car and closed the doors. Unfortunately, as those of you who have just gotten into a car while it's extremely hot out already know, the car was burning hot and the air that came out of the fan was also rather warm. 

"Danny, it's not cooling down fast enough. Can't you do something?" Sam asked.

"There's one thing. Going Ghost!" Danny shouted, as he became Danny Phantom in a flash of white light. He touched Harry's forehead with his now-freezing palm, and the baby immediately began to calm down. Soon enough, the coldness that emanated from his ghostly form had cooled the car down sufficiently.

"O-okay, D-danny, I th-think y-you've d-done it," Sam said, her teeth chattering.

"Right, sorry," the halfa answered as he reverted to his human form, turned off the now-unnecessary air conditioner, and drove out of the hospital.

Once they arrived back at their apartment, the proud parents tucked their newborn child into his crib and turned on the baby monitor. They then ambled over to the couch and collapsed onto it.

"I'm exhausted," said Sam.

"I don't blame you. I'd like to just lay down and sleep for the next year or so, but I've watched enough TV to know that that's not going to be possible."

"Why not?" As if on cue, Harry began crying. "I'll get it," Sam said, and went over to the bawling child. It turned out that his diaper was dirty. She ineptly changed the diaper and tossed the old one into the bin, and went back over to the couch.

"As I was saying before," Danny continued, "I'm sure that we'll be getting pretty good at that over the next couple of years." Sam groaned.

Danny was pretty accurate in assuming that the first few days of parenthood would turn out exactly the way everyone made it out to be-a lot of sleepless nights and dirty diapers. It was a good thing that he and Sam were pretty quick on the uptake; they quickly learned how to determine whether Harry was hungry, needed to be changed or burped, or was just plain lonely. They would usually alternate in caring for him, unless of course he was hungry. Danny wasn't about to try and remedy _that_ situation. There were times when Danny and Sam thought that taking care of little Harry was too much to bear, and they wouldn't be able to handle the responsibilities for more than a little while. However, every night they would look down at Harry's sleeping form, and all of their insecurities would be swept away by his tiny breath. He was the cutest little thing either of them had ever set eyes on, and every time they watched him they would promise each other that they would do anything to protect him and take care of his needs. They would always leave his room in a state of calm, only to be replaced by a harried worry whenever they reentered it. So passed the first five days of parenthood.

The eighth day of Harry's life on earth dawned warm and humid. Danny drove his family over to Sam's parents' house and parked the car on the end of a line that stretched down to the end of the road.

"I wonder if your parents hyped today up enough?" he asked sarcastically.

"No, I think they could have spread the news a little more," she returned, her voice dripping with an equal amount of sarcasm. "There are a few people in Iceland who haven't heard about today."

"You're right, your parents should be ashamed of themselves, keeping those poor people in the dark like that." He turned off the car, got out, and took Harry out of his car seat. He carried the baby and Sam walked by his side across the walkway. She rang the doorbell and Sam's mother answered.

"Oh, look who it is!" She exclaimed, nearly fainting from excitement. "The guests of honor have arrived!" she swept the family into the mansion and they were greeted by hundreds and hundreds of people they didn't know. They got a quick glimpse of Tucker and Valerie, as well as Danny's parents, but they were quickly swept away by the sheer magnitude of the crowd.

"This is almost as bad as at Vlad's wedding," Sam muttered to Danny.

"Tell me about it," he answered. Finally, the guests parted to allow the parents bring their child into the room where the ceremony would be taking place. The _mohel_ made his speech about the importance of the event and Danny and Sam recited the appropriate blessings. Danny handed Harry off to Tucker, who had seemingly materialized out of the crowd. Tucker sat in the assigned chair and laid Harry on his back. The baby lay on Tucker's lap as the _mohel_ said his blessing and brought the scalpel down in a place that made all of the men in the room groan in sympathetic agony. When the deed was done, he put a drop of wine on the foreskin-less child's tongue and allowed the celebration to begin. The guest of honor was put back in a diaper and paraded around by Tucker, who noticed that when Sam's parents came to take another picture, his godson's face twitched. _So this is what they were talking about_, he thought. There was food and dancing, and everyone had a great time. Right before it was time for everyone to go, someone made a realization that he brought before the rest of the group.

"Where did the parents go?" he asked. Everyone looked around and, sure enough, Danny and Sam were nowhere to be found. This prompted a massive search of the mansion, and it was Jazz who finally found the proud parents. She giggled and called everyone else, who came running down to the first floor where, behind a thick curtain, sat Danny and Sam. They had pulled up two chairs and were sitting in them, their heads leaning against one another, fast asleep. Everybody said, "Awww…" and took pictures with their flash cameras, which woke the couple up immediately.

"You two were out cold," Sam's father informed a groggy Danny and Sam.

"That was kinda the idea. Now if you'll excuse us," Sam said and dragged Danny by the hand up to her old room. The crowd laughed hysterically and continued to party. Valerie took Harry from Tucker, whose arms were getting tired, and the two brought the baby over to Danny's parents.

"I don't believe it," Jack said, his lower lip quivering, "Our little boy is already a man. They grow up so fast, don't they, Maddie?"

"Jack, that talk isn't for another thirteen years," Maddie admonished.

"Oh yeah…so what are we celebrating today?" Maddie told him, and he stood there, shocked.

"What? So that's why all of the guys groaned all at the same time?"

"That's pretty much it, Dad," Jazz answered.

"Ouch…well, there's a buffet table that has 'Jack Fenton' written all over it, so if you'll excuse me," he dashed off in a beeline for the buffet table, knocking about twenty people over in the process, only to come right back. "Oh yeah, before I forget, give this to Danny and Sam when they wake up, will you?" he requested, handing Tucker a small white box. After making the drop-off, he ran back to the table and knocked over the same twenty people who were just getting up off the ground from after his first rampage, and began stuffing his face with bagels.

"Well, he certainly took the knowledge well," Valerie commented.

"Yeah, from now on, whenever we need to give him bad news, we'll make sure that there's food nearby," Jazz said to the chuckles of the rest of the group. They watched him scarf down first one bagel, then another, then another…

"Talk about cramming," Tucker noted.

"Hey, that's my line!" Jazz accused.

"What?"

"Oh…nothing." Tucker arched an eyebrow, then followed Jack's path to the food table. An awkward silence ensued.

"So…" Valerie said, trying to break the silence. "Did Danny tell you two about what happened when Sam's parents came to visit them in the hospital?"

"No, what happened?" Maddie asked. Valerie related to them the story of Harry's facial twitch and feigned tantrum, and by the end of it Jazz and Maddie were in hysterics.

"That's…so…funny…" Jazz gasped.

"Yeah…talk about…the Fenton fighting spirit!" Maddie added.

"That's pretty much what Danny said," Valerie informed them.

"Speaking of which, it looks like him and Sam are having kind of a rough first few days, wouldn't you say?" Jazz asked.

"It's always difficult at first," Maddie said sagely, then added, "at least Harry doesn't appear to have colic like you did, Jazz. I swear there were times I had to forcibly prevent Jack from throwing you out the window, you were so annoying." Jazz blanched and Valerie burst out laughing. All of a sudden, a wisp of steam came out of Harry's nose, gaining the attention of the rest of the Fenton family, as well as Tucker and Valerie.

"Although I don't think I've ever heard of that happening before," Maddie noted. Suddenly, there was a large rumbling noise and an enormous blue dragon ghost emerged out of the wall to the left of the party.

"**I have to go!**" It shouted.

"Yeah, you'd better get out of here, ghost!" Valerie threatened, pulling an ecto-grenade launcher out of a holster as she carefully placed a still-sleeping Harry on the nearest table. In response, the dragon reared its head back and roared. Jack and Maddie each pulled a pair of ectoguns out of hidden folds in their suits, and the green bursts of energy that were emitted from them were soon complemented by a pink ray from Valerie's gun. The draconian specter was repulsed and weakened by the shots, thus leaving her vulnerable. Valerie took advantage of this to pull a Fenton Thermos out of a carabineer on her belt and suck the ghost into it.

"Maybe we should go now," Valerie suggested.

"Good point. The fact that there was a ghost indicates that the Fenton Portal might be left open and allowing more specters to come into our dimension. Jack and I should make sure that the portal's closed and then go on patrol to see if any other ghosts have escaped."

"And I can finally catch a ghost!" Jack shouted.

"I just hope that that mass of ectoplasmic slime, Phantom, stays out of our way this time," Maddie growled. Tucker and Valerie shot each other nervous glances.

"I'll go wake Danny and Sam and tell them what happened," Tucker volunteered and picked Harry up.

"Yeah, I'll come too," Valerie agreed. Tucker led the way to Sam's childhood room and opened the door to reveal Danny and Sam, who were passed out in each other's arms. In one fluid motion, Tucker brought a PDA out of his pocket, aimed it, and took a picture.

"You know, you don't have to take pictures of them for proof anymore; all of the bets are done for."

"Sorry…old habits," Tucker said. He placed Harry in-between the lovers and snapped another picture. "You have to admit, though, they make a really cute couple."

"Yeah, and Harry is really photogenic."

"At least when it isn't Sam's parents trying to take the picture." The two chuckled a bit at the slowly-getting-old joke. They watched as Sam and Danny each subconsciously wrapped a protective arm over their son. The couple held hands and watched the family sleep for what felt like an eternity.

"I really want to start a family with you, Valerie," Tucker said, breaking the silence.

"And I you, Tucker. Really, I do. But we should wait until after you finish school."

"I know. It sucks, though, having to wait so long."

"It won't be so bad. We have each other, right? And besides, after you finish graduate school, you'll be able to get a good enough job to support a bigger family if we decide to have more than one."

"You're right. If it wasn't for your dad's connections, I don't know how Danny and Sam would be able to make ends meet."

"They'd have to turn to her parents. I'm sure that they'd be more than willing to support them."

"But they wouldn't resort to that. Neither of them like Sam's parents enough to willingly go into their debt like that."

"One of them should've continued at school."

"I know. There's no way Danny can ever be an astronaut now."

"Yeah, and while the hookup my dad gave Danny should let them go by comfortably, I don't know if they'll be able to make ends meet when their second is born."

"You mean you know that they'll have another?"

"Knowing those two? Definitely."

"What about Sam's job?"

"I have a feeling that she's going to quit now to take care of Harry."

"Nah, Sam wouldn't give up her independence like that."

"The old Sam, maybe. But the Danny and Sam we know are a little more mature than the ones that we went to high school with and more capable of making decisions that have a more positive impact on the world around them, especially when the world around them consists of their own flesh and blood."

"Or so we'd hope."

"Or so we'd hope. C'mon, we should probably wake them up."

* * *

Well, I promised a longer chapter, and did I deliver or what? 


	20. Birthdays and Ghost Powers

Sorry about taking so long to update; there was school on top of SAT prep on top of other fics on top of not being able to upload new chapters until this evening. I'll try and be better next time, promise!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

"Happy fourteenth birthday, Harry!" everyone shouted.

"C'mon, son, blow out your candles," Danny said as he placed a massive chocolate cake in front of his eldest child. He, and everyone else around the table, was wearing a black-and-white party hat in addition to their regular clothing; Harry's childhood superhero had always been Danny Phantom, and his parents honored his wishes by theming the party after him. Both his hero and his father (though Harry didn't realize the presence of the former at the time) covered their muscular frame in a white dress shirt and suit pants, having just gotten home from work as security director at Axion Labs.

"Yeah, I wanna eat the cake already!" Jack wailed.

"Jack," Maddie admonished her husband, "How many times to I have to tell you, we only eat _one _piece of cake at a time." Although their hair was now significantly grayer than it was fourteen years ago, both were as active as ever, and still ran around hunting ghosts in their orange and blue HAZMAT suits.

"But Maddie," the large man pouted, "It's so chocolaty and delicious!"

"So am I but you don't see me whining about it," Tucker interrupted, just before his wife playfully punched him on the shoulder. Over the years, he had gotten contact lenses and finally dumped the beret. He also changed the yellow turtleneck into a T-shirt, but he still wore a green pair of cargo pants and toted the same PDA. Of course, by this time he was one of the top programmers at Google, and he and Valerie were the proud parents of Tamara Foley, who was twelve years old, looked just like her mother at that age, and always hung out with her best friend Jaime Fenton.

Danny and Sam's second child, a girl two years younger than Harry, was seated next to Tamara. She had black, shoulder-length hair and eyes of amethyst speckled with electric blue. She was wearing jeans and a dark purple top that her mother had bought her, since Sam absolutely refused to buy anything pink for her daughter.

"You're taking so long, Harry! Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine, auntie Jazz. I just want to make my wish really count this time," Harry addressed his redheaded aunt who sat next to her husband Mitchell. Both of them were professors of psychology at Harvard, and had published multiple bestsellers offering insight into the complexities of the human psyche.

The young man quickly thought to himself, _I wish I could be just like Danny Phantom!_ And quickly blew out his candles. Everyone cheered and his mother began cutting the cake and handing a slice out to everyone. After cake, Danny brought out the presents. The first one was from Harry's grandparents, and turned out to be a black HAZMAT suit with green gloves, boots, belt, and collar.

"And the manufacturers were offering a discount, so we had this one made for you, Jaime," Maddie explained as she tossed another jumpsuit to her granddaugher. Jaime caught the suit, which was also black except for the gloves, boots, belt, and collar, which were amethyst.

"Thanks, grandma! Thanks, grandpa!" Harry said as he dove into the next present, which was from Tucker. "Cool! An Xbox 1080! This hasn't even hit the shelves yet!"

"You're welcome," the techno-geek replied with a grin. His godson opened Jazz's present, which was a book. The teen rolled his eyes and went to open his last present, the one from his parents. It was kind of small and square, like a framed photograph. He slowly unwrapped it, and gasped when he saw what was inside. Harry removed the rest of the wrapping paper from a picture of none other than Danny Phantom. His hands glowed an intense ghostly green that matched the hue of his eyes. He still wore a black and white jumpsuit, though it had considerably filled out since puberty had hit. He had short spiky hair and an intense expression on his face. He floated in front of Harry's house in a fighting stance, facing an unknown foe behind the photographer. It was signed:

_Dear Harry,_

_Best wishes on your special day!_

_I hope some ghost doesn't come and wreck it for you,_

_Because then I'll have to come and end up eating some of your birthday cake._

_You know how much I love chocolate._

_Sincerely,_

_Danny Phantom_

"Wow…this is…how did you get this?" The awestruck boy finally managed to ask.

"Let's just say that Phantom and I are kind of close buddies," his father replied. Behind him, the empty boxes of presents began glowing with an eerie green light. They all levitated about five feet in the air and began swirling around in a small vortex. Since everyone was now concentrating on the boxes, nobody noticed that Danny had suddenly disappeared. The boxes slowed down and parted, and in their place floated a portly, blue ghost.

"I am the Box Ghost, master of all things corrugated and square!" the specter shouted.

"Attacking birthday parties, boxy? That's low, even for you," a deeper voice replied. It was followed by its owner as Danny rose up through the table in ghost mode. He raised a finger and shot a green ectoblast above the Box Ghost's head. He then curled his finger and the needle-thin blast made a U-turn and hit the ghost in the back of the head. The blue specter flew forward, right into Danny's waiting fist. The Halfa unclipped a thermos from a small metal belt around his waist and sucked the Box Ghost inside. He then turned around to face Harry. He reached down and stuck his gloved finger into Harry's father's slice of cake and licked it clean.

"I really do love chocolate, you know," he said, and then disappeared into thin air. Danny Fenton quietly and imperceptibly joined the group.

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Harry shouted. To the side, Tamara and Jaime were talking excitedly about what had happened.

"Did you see his jumpsuit?"

"Yeah, and the way he just floated up,"

"Uh-huh, and the green energy blast,"

"And how it just turned around, just like that,"

"Flew right into his fist,"

"And the thermos?"

"That ghost kid is a menace if I ever saw one," Jack growled. "He should leave the ghost hunting to us professionals!" he brandished a small ectogun, but pressed a button and the gun squirted a large amount of glowing green ectoplasmic goo at his face.

"Yes, honey, you're very professional, now go clean yourself off so that you don't contaminate your cake with ghost matter," Maddie said. Jack pressed a button on his jumpsuit and a Fenton Towel came out of the shoulder pocket. The large man quickly cleaned himself off and returned to his cake. Jazz checked her watch.

"Well, it's getting kind of late. We should all be getting back," she said. She and her husband were staying at FentonWorks for the night.

"Aww, but I just finished my first slice of birthday cake," Jack whined.

"Dad, if that one ghost came out of the Ghost Zone, then shouldn't you get the lab on lockdown until you make sure that the rest of the town is safe?" Danny suggested.

"You're right, Danny, we need to make sure the lab is safe! Come on, everybody!" He easily lifted Maddie, Jazz, and Mitchell, carried them into the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle, and drove off.

"We should be getting home too," Valerie agreed.

"Alright. Happy birthday, kid," Tucker said, giving his godson a high-five. He did the same to Danny, but muttered "Show-off" under his breath. Danny just laughed.

"Hang out at my place tomorrow?" Tamara asked.

"Sure thing," Jaime replied. The Foleys waved goodbye one more time and drove off. Danny and Sam began cleaning up the backyard, where they had held the party. Harry and Jaime sat at their seats and finished off their cake. Suddenly, Harry dropped his fork and began shivering violently.

"What's up?" Danny asked.

"I'm not sure…I feel…cold…all of a sudden."

"I feel it too," Jaime said as she began to shiver as well.

"Does it feel as though there's a presence inside of you that just woke up? Something that's always been lurking, cold as death, but is finally ready to come out?"

"Yeah, sort of. How did you know, Dad?" Danny grinned.

"I knew this day would come eventually. In fact, I was just around your age when it happened to me."

"But why am I getting it? I'm only twelve?" Jaime protested.

"Girls hit puberty before boys do, so it follows that this part of you would also mature at a younger age."

"What part of us? What's happening to us, Dad?"

"You're just beginning to realize your ghost halves. You see, you two are both half ghost."

"What?" Jaime shouted. "That's ridiculous! How can we be part ghost? It's not like you or Mom is a ghost! Right?"

"Actually, that's not entirely true. You see, Jaime, when I was fourteen your grandparents built a machine that was supposed to act as a portal between our world and the ghost's world. It didn't quite work, and your mom convinced me to go inside and look around."

"What about me?" Sam asked as she sat down next to Danny.

"Harry and Jaime's ghost halves just manifested, and I'm explaining how it all came to be."

"Ah…"she said, a slightly nervous look on her face.

"Anyway, I went inside and I leaned on the space of wall where there happened to be a switch. I accidentally pressed the green button, and I got shocked with a huge about of ghost energy. It altered my molecular structure and made me part ghost, an attribute which I then passed on to both of you."

"Oh…so are we, like, a quarter ghost or something like that?"

"Actually, no. When both of you were born I looked at blood samples and both of them indicated that your molecular structure was completely hybridized, so you're completely half ghost, if that makes sense."

"What does your ghost half look like, Dad?" Harry asked excitedly. Danny grinned for the third time that night.

"I thought you'd never ask," he said. He stood up from the table and jumped on top of it. "What was it I used to say? I don't even remember anymore," he addressed Sam.

"I'm going ghost." She reminded him.

"Right…I'm going ghost!" he shouted as twin white rings appeared around his waist. They traveled across his body and left a man with snow-white hair, glowing green eyes, and a black-and-white jumpsuit standing on the table. Harry looked on in awe.

"Y…you're Danny Phantom? But then…that means…whoa."

"Yeah, Dad. 'whoa' pretty much sums it up," Jaime added.

"Alright, enough about me. I want to see what your ghost forms look like. Here's what you should do-each of you go into a separate bathroom and think of yourselves as being more energized, more powerful. You should see two rings appear around your waist; it doesn't really matter what color they are. Once the transformation is complete, put on the jumpsuits my parents gave you and change back. Then come back out here."

"Why do we need to go into separate bathrooms?" Jaime asked.

"Because you were born as halfas so when you transform for the first time you'll probably be wearing your birthday suits."

"Separate bathrooms, then?" Harry asked.

"Separate bathrooms it is," Jaime responded, and the two of them went into the house.

"So how did you know their ghost halves were acting up?" Sam asked her husband.

"They started shivering uncontrollably."

"Yeah, but the sun is setting. It might just be an evening chill."

"The way they described it sounded a lot like the way my powers felt early on. Also, I sensed their spectral energy acting up." He changed back and wrapped her in a tight hug. "The next while is going to be very tough for you," he said.

"Danny, I've dealt with hanging out with a halfa before now. I survived your adolescence…barely…" he laughed at that, but then became serious.

"Sam, this time it's different. You're whole family is going to be fighting to keep our town safe. I'm sure that it must be extremely difficult for a mother to have to live with that kind of worry and responsibility."

"I trust you, Danny."

"I know you do, and that's what I'm worried about. I'll be training them in their powers, and I need you to let me know if I'm pushing them too hard or keeping them away from school or their social lives."

"You'll keep them safe, right?"

"Of course I will, Sam. Of course I will." He leaned in and kissed her deeply.

"a-HEM" Harry coughed loudly as he and Jaime left the back door of the house. Danny and Sam broke apart, blushing.

"I swear, he's just like his godfather sometimes," Sam muttered. Danny snorted.

"What's up, guys?"

"Nothing, nothing. Now, let's see those ghost forms."


	21. Training

Well? What'd I tell ya? Two extra-long chapters in one night. While this can't possibly totallymake up for such a long break, I hope it helps

**Disclaimer:I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

"All right, let's see those ghost forms!" Harry and Jaime got into fighting stances and stood, concentrating, for about ten seconds. All of a sudden, a green ring of light appeared around Harry's waist, just as an amethyst halo formed around that of Jaime. The kids rings of light traveled up and down, and in their place stood two ghost children.

"Nice," Danny commented. Both of them had white hair, but Jaime's had black streaks. Harry's eyes became green dotted with violet, and Jaime's shifted to purple spotted with green. The gloves, boots, belt, and collar of their jumpsuits accentuated both of their eyes; Harry's were green and Jaime's were amethyst. The costumes were as yet empty of any sort of symbol.

"So, do you want to start working on your powers now, or should we wait until tomorrow?"

"Let's start now!" both of them chorused.

"Fine by me. Lesson #1: Intangibility. This is the second-easiest power for a ghost to use, next to flight. And before you ask, the reason why I'm not teaching you how to fly first is because intangibility is also the hardest power to control. Now that your powers have manifested themselves, you'll probably lose tangibility in parts or all of your bodies temporarily if you lose concentration, even while in human form. I had my powers for more than two months before I finally stopped phasing through objects unintentionally."

"Did it ever come in handy for you?" Jaime asked.

"Well, it did get me a date to the dance back in freshman year…" He replied, his eyes misting over in reminiscence. Sam snorted.

"His pants turned intangible when he tried asking the most popular girl in school and they fell down. You got, what, a week's worth of detentions?"

"And a parent-teacher conference," Danny confessed, his ears turning red. His kids were clutching their sides, they were laughing so hard. At least, Harry was until he accidentally phased into the ground. Danny sighed, flew down into the earth, and dragged him back up again by the wrist.

"That was weird…."

"See what I mean? If you lose control, you'll start phasing unintentionally. Okay, in order to make yourself intangible, picture a part of your body as not existing in either space or time. Don't think that it's there but unseen, because that'll make it turn invisible. Think totally nonexistent. Imagine that you've just had your arm amputated just below the elbow."

"Nice mental image, Dad," Jaime said. She closed her eyes in concentration for a minute, and when she reopened them, she looked down to find that her amethyst glove was visible but very transparent.

"Great, Jaime, now stick it into the table over there." The girl walked over and thrust her hand downward over the table. It sank into the wooden material.

"Whoa…it's as though my arm is totally encased in wood, like a sarcophagus."

"And you thought that Dad had a nasty mental image," Harry muttered.

"What'd you say?"

"I said 'see, isn't it a weird feeling?'"

"Okay, Harry, now you try." Harry examined his arm for a second and made the gloved portion intangible. He stuck the arm into his stomach.

"Eew!" Jaime shrieked. Danny just laughed.

"Kudos, Harry. By the way, that trick comes in really handy if by accident you're eating so quickly that you swallow a spork, fork, spoon, or any other utensil."

"Do I wanna know?"

"Nah, probably not. Now, both of you stand on top of the table." They jumped on. "I want you to try and make your whole bodies intangible this time, and try to regain tangibility before you begin falling into the ground." His kids effortlessly phased through the table and walked out through it.

"Awesome, you're getting this really quickly, although I don't really know whether it's due to your level of competence or lack of control over making yourselves intangible."

"Well, we managed to undo it, right?"

"True. Now, we'll try invisibility, but you'll probably get it relatively quickly since the feeling isn't too different from intangibility, and nothing _too_ awkward will happen if you mess it up. Like I said before, think of your arm as being there, just in the realm of the unseen." The ghost kids got it without too much trouble. He continued on.

"Lesson #4: Using your powers while in the Ghost Zone. In case you hadn't picked this up from my parents yet, the Ghost Zone is the dimension that ghosts come from. The only way that they can get into our world is through the Fenton Portal, or a second portal that's in Wisconsin. Don't ask about that just yet-I'll elaborate later if you want. Anyway, you'll probably have no reason to ever have to go into the Ghost Zone, but if you do you're to tell me so that I can accompany you, at least early on. FYI, I'm public enemy #1 in the Ghost Zone, and the other ghosts are bound to see the resemblance between us. I can fight them off without too much of an effort, but I'm afraid that they'll easily take advantage of you by either attacking you outright or manipulating you into working against me. While I'm sure that neither of you would do that intentionally, there are ghosts out there that are really good at mind control, not to mention 'forceful coercion,' and you might not end up having a choice. But I digress. The point is that while you're in the Ghost Zone, you can't use intangibility or invisibility. Those powers only work while ghosts are on the human plane. However, as humans, you'll automatically phase through everything in the Ghost Zone, except for other real-world items. Summary: in the Ghost Zone, ghosts can get hurt, but humans are home-free."

"How many enemies do you have, Dad?"

"You're the avid Phantom Phan, you tell me."

"Well, there's the Box Ghost, Skuker, Technus, the Fright Knight, Johnny 13 and Kitty…"

"I was being rhetorical, you don't need to list them all. Trust me, if I started to list all of my enemies to you, both of you would be so bored by the end of it that you'd have phased halfway to the center of the earth." His kids chuckled.

"Now, lesson #4: flight. This is the easiest power to do, and most ghosts fly, or at the very least float, practically subconsciously. That's how naturally it comes to us. Now, as you may or may not have noticed, your ghost forms are practically weightless. That's because ghosts are really manifestations of energy and lack actual substance, and therefore mass. While this energy technically has no weight, it allows you to shift what little mass you have relative to your center of gravity. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Somewhat."

"Good enough; it's better than what explanations I had at your age."

"Why, what did you have?"

"Think up, you go up. Think down, you go down."

"So you basically had to start from scratch?"

"I gleaned a little info from what my parents were researching, but nowhere near as much as what you're getting this evening. Anyway, you're standing right now because you've experienced having all of your mass over your center of gravity when in that position for twelve or fourteen years. I want you to try shifting your weight up about an inch above where it normally sits. You'll start to ascend. To stay still in the air, just bring your weight back down to your center of gravity." Harry and Jaime concentrated, and began to slowly rise. Harry stopped after a couple of feet, but Jaime kept on going up.

"Dad, I can't stop it!" She shouted down from her constantly elevating height of ten feet. Danny blinked and held out his arm. He easily overpowered her with his telekinesis and brought her back down to the ground, where she transformed. He turned to Harry.

"Just put your weight slightly below your center of gravity and come down, then change back." He did so. "Well, what do you think so far?"

"I liked it," Jaime mused. "Flying's fun."

"You're truly your mother's daughter, Jaime."

"What are you talking about, Danny?" Sam asked.

"Just because Ember had me under a love spell, doesn't mean I forgot everything that happened while I was under it." She blushed.

"Huh?" Both of their children asked, confused.

"The first year I had my powers, this rocker ghost named Ember Mclain used her powers to put me under a spell that made me fall madly in love with your mother."

"Wait a minute, Ember Mclain? My science teacher, Mr. Dwyer, said that she was one of the greatest rock stars of the early twenty-first century. She was a ghost? Cool!"

"Didn't you always love mom?" Harry inquired. Danny blushed.

"Yeah, but it was different when we were in high school. Your mom and I knew each other since, like, first grade, but we were just really good friends back then. We never started seriously dating until senior year, and we got married right after graduating college."

"How did you two meet?"

"He was trying to hang on his knees from the monkey bars while I happened to be walking right below him and he fell on me," Sam replied.

"Was he much of a klutz when you were kids?"

"Are you kidding? In our freshman year he broke thirty-four beakers inside of a month. And that was before he even got his ghost powers."

"Actually Sam, that was the first month that I had my powers."

"Oh…but you didn't have them when you spilled that plate of chili on Dash's head in eighth grade."

"True."

"How did you get your powers anyway, Dad?" Harry asked. Danny led everyone inside and sat them down around the kitchen table, saying that they might be there for a while. He took a deep breath and began to tell his tale:

"Well, when I was fourteen my parents were just finishing work on the Fenton Portal. They were so excited about it, they had woken up your aunt Jazz and I at some ridiculous hour in the morning to watch when they plugged it in. Now this was unusual for them; usually when they had come up with a new invention they would just wait and show it to us over breakfast. But this was their life's work, and they just couldn't wait to start it up. So they dragged us down into the lab and plugged in the last two wires. The hole in the wall sparked a few times and then died. Your grandparents were really distraught that their huge project had failed, and they just held each other quietly while they went upstairs. Jazz and I felt really badly about the whole affair, but we didn't know what to do about it.

"The next day, I told my two best friends-your mom and your godfather Tucker-about it. We went over to my place that afternoon, and your mom suggested that I go in and get the portal to start working. I took one of their HAZMAT suits out of the closet; it was white and had black gloves, boots, belt and collar. I zipped it up and Sam ripped off my dad's picture that was on the front. I went into the portal. Just for fun, I decided to press the green 'on' button, just before I realized that the thing was still plugged in. Everything turned blinding white, then black.

"I woke up on the floor of the lab, and the whole place had this eerie green glow. I turned around and saw that the portal was working. I started cheering, but stopped when I saw the facial expressions on Sam and Tucker. Your mom held up a mirror, and I gasped at what I had become-my black hair had turned snow-white, and my electric-blue eyes had turned all green and glowing. I was really pale and cold, and had this odd aura around me. I also noticed that my suit had reversed the colors so that it was now black with white gloves, boots, belt and collar. All of a sudden, a pair of white rings appeared around my waist and changed me back into how I looked before the accident. I was shocked, and after a couple of weeks speculating, the three of us determined that I had become half ghost.

"About a month into getting my powers, ghosts started to come out of the portal. The first ones were mercifully easy, but they began getting tougher and tougher as time went on. Early on, I made the decision that I was graced with these paranormal powers and so it was my responsibility to protect Amity Park from these ghosts. I took on the mantle of town protector, and thus Danny Phantom was born." Everyone around the table was silent.

"That sounds painful," Jamie finally said.

"It was," her father admitted. "And it felt like an eternity even though your mom and Tucker both say it was only about ten seconds."

"Yeah, definitely more painful than being born with powers." Harry agreed.

"Speak for yourself," Sam interrupted. "You try having to push yourself out through-"

"Okay, Sam, I think they get the idea."

"So will you be able to teach us all of your powers?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, but not all at once. I'm sure that both of you know about almost all of my different types of powers; they've appeared on the news and in newspapers more than enough." They nodded. They already knew about his ability to launch ectoblasts, summon ghost shields, duplicate, move things with his mind…he had so many different powers it was almost tough to keep track of them all. He continued.

"Although I won't be able to teach you anything beyond what you already know how to do so far-intangibility, invisibility, and flight. Don't think that I'm holding you back or anything, it's just that you won't be able to do anything else just yet."

"Why not?"

"Every other type of attack requires you to input some of your own spectral energy. While I can teach you how to do that, there's no point just yet. You both just virtually became ghosts; your energy is practically at zero, and spending so much time practicing lowered it even further. In order to perform even the most basic spectral attacks such as ghost rays, you'll need to build up your power. Some of that is done naturally; over time you'll find that you'll be able to hold your ghost forms for longer than before. But the rest is from practice using your powers. The more you practice, the more your energy will grow and the sooner you'll be able to take on more advanced powers."

"How often are we going to train?"

"As much or as little as you want. I remember how fighting ghosts always got in the way of having a personal life; the last thing I want is for the same thing happening to you. But just remember, the more we train, the more your powers will grow. Now, like I said before, your energies are really low right now; even if I couldn't sense it using my own powers I can tell by the way you're both nodding off. You need to get to bed so that you can both regain some of the energy you've spent and also let your body acclimate to your ghost halves." Harry and Jaime looked at the clock. It was only about 8:45 but their dad was right; they were practically dead on their feet (no pun intended). They slowly made their way up to their individual rooms. Jaime stopped her brother just before they separated.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot-happy birthday, Harry."

"Thanks. See you in the morning."

"Yeah, right, I feel as though I could sleep 'till noon."

"Same. Well, I won't keep us from those nice, warm beds. 'Night."

"Goodnight," They went into their rooms and crashed onto their beds, falling asleep as soon as they landed. Downstairs, Danny and Sam were cuddled together on the couch, talking.

"I think you handled that really well, Danny" Sam said as she rested her head in the crook of his neck.

"You're certainly taking the knowledge that your whole family is partially dead pretty well." He marveled at her figure for a moment. "How on earth did you stay so sexy after having two kids?" she giggled and placed her lips on his neck. When she pulled away there was a rather large hicky where her mouth had been.

"We're such teenagers," he said.

"I realize that I don't look a day older than sixteen, but you could only get away with twenty-five." He laughed at that. Suddenly, he became serious.

"Sam, how could I have been such an idiot? First Paulina, then Valerie? I should be shot with an ectogun repeatedly just for breaking your heart all those times. I don't deserve to be here with you, not after the way I treated you back in high school." She put a finger on his lips, shushing him.

"It doesn't matter what happened back then, Danny. We're here now, together, and that's what's important. Besides, if you really didn't want to start going out in senior year because you thought that you didn't deserve to be with me, then we'd each be with somebody else, and neither couple would be truly happy. Better that there's one happy couple than two unhappy ones, right?"

"After I figured out how I truly felt, then I wouldn't even try to start a relationship with anyone else."

"You're sweet,"

"I know," he said as he kissed her deeply. He caught her by surprise, so she had to stop and get some air. Once that was accomplished, she pulled him into another, longer kiss. After a good minute or so he broke away and whispered roughly into her ear:

"No matter what happened before, no matter how much of a clueless idiot I was in the past, I love you and I always will. Nothing on earth or the Ghost Zone can ever, ever change that. Not even death itself."

"I know," she whispered back. "You're too darn stubborn to allow something stupid like death get in the way of what you want."

"I want you,"

"And I want you." She leaned into him and he lifted her up bridal style and carried her into their bedroom.


	22. I'm Evil?

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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Harry was having a really weird dream. He had gone to visit his grandparents, but as soon as he entered the large brick building their ghost sensors went off. Jack and Maddie ran out from the kitchen pointing large, bazooka-like weapons at him and yelling that he was a ghost. He tried to protest that, no, he was their grandson, but they just wouldn't listen. He frantically looked around for a way out, and his eyes alighted upon the door to the basement lab. He tore through it amidst the cries of "Quick, Maddie, he's going to use some of our weapons against us!"

When he reached the bottom of the stairs the first thing he noticed was that the whole room was bathed in green light. He glanced to the left-hand wall and realized that the Fenton Portal was open. The second thing he noticed was a person, no, a ghost, standing in front of the open portal, his shadow casting a line of darkness that cleaved the green glow of the portal in two. As Harry approached the ghost, he realized that it wasn't just any ghost. It was himself, in ghost form. Upon closer inspection, though, he noticed that this specter was different, somehow. His eyes were red, not green speckled with purple, and his white hair wasn't messy and floppy; it was up and back. It almost looked as though it was on fire.

"Who…who are you?" The nervous boy asked.

"Why, I'm you, Harry." His alter-ego's voice was somehow not his own; it was colder, more sinister. It gave Harry the chills.

"I…no…you're evil!" He managed to articulate.

"But of course, Harry. All ghosts are evil. Even half-ghosts have an evil side to them. Or didn't your father explain that to you? Probably because he's afraid of what the evil version of himself was capable of when they met."

"I'm not evil!" Harry shouted. "I refuse to believe that. I'm not you!"

"Even if you don't acknowledge me, I'm still here. I still exist. Even if you try to push me away, I'll always be lurking in the back of your mind. Even if you don't let me out like Plasmius did, I'll be a presence that's just waiting to escape. And when I do, all of your loved ones will suffer. Believe it." He vanished into thin air just as his grandparents reached the bottom of the stairs.

"There he is, Maddie!" Jack shouted as he shot a large, green, blast of energy at Harry that seared into his abdomen and forced him backwards into the portal.

"NOOOOO" he screamed as his vision became green. He woke up twisted in his sheets, in a cold sweat. Luckily, he accidentally lost tangibility and phased through both the sheets and the bed and landed on the floor. He rolled out from under his bed and sat on top of it. _What a crazy nightmare,_ he thought. _Am I really evil? I need to talk to Dad about this. And who the hell is Plasmius?_ He stood up and went into the hallway. He was about to enter his parents' room, but stopped once he noticed the doorknob. There was a black baseball cap with his dad's DP insignia hanging on it. He shuddered at the memory of what had happened when he didn't know what that meant-he had had a nightmare when he was four and barged in to find his parents in a rather…awkward…situation.

_Ugh…I'll never be able to un-see that,_ he thought. He went back into his room and lay down on his bed. Thankfully, he was still energy-deficient, so it wasn't long before he passed outinto a blissfully dreamless sleep.

He woke up the next day at around 2:30 in the afternoon. Amazed that he had been able to sleep for so long, he jumped out of bed and washed up. He got dressed and came down for breakfast, noticing both the fact that he was rejuvenated and that he was ravenous. He sat at the table where his sister was waiting for him. Their mother was practically singing as she placed a massive stack of pancakes down in front of them.

"Wow, someone's in a good mood this morning," Jaime noted, having clued into their mother's demeanor. _I can't imagine why,_ Harry thought wryly.

"Afternoon," he corrected. "By the way, did you happen to have any weird dreams last night?"

"No, why?" his sister responded just as Sam sat down at the table.

"I had a dream that grandma and grandpa Fenton were chasing me with Fenton Bazookas."

"Don't worry about it," his mom reassured him. "Danny used to dream about his parents hunting him all the time. Of course, they actually _did_ hunt him, but it shouldn't make a difference. The key thing is that if you ever encounter them while in ghost mode you just need to be smarter than they are."

"Shouldn't be too hard to outsmart grandpa," Jaime said with a smirk.

"Agreed. It's grandma we need to worry about," Harry replied, and the three of them dug into the pancakes. After a few minutes, Jaime said that she was supposed to meet Tamara and left, leaving just Harry and Sam at the table.

"Is there anything else you dreamed about that you want to talk about?"

"Actually, there is. Is Dad…evil?" Sam was taken aback by the question.

"Whoa. Where did that come from?"

"Well, I said that grandma and grandpa were chasing me, and they chased me into the lab. The Fenton Portal was on, and my ghost half was standing in front of it. Except that this ghost was evil, and sort of didn't look like me. He said that he was part of me, and that all ghosts have an evil side, even Dad. He also said that Dad's evil version of himself was really powerful, and scared Dad really badly when they fought, and he mentioned another ghost named Plasmius. Then he said that even if I try to be good, he'll always exist in the back of my mind, and then he disappeared. Just then, grandpa came downstairs and shot at me and I fell into the portal, and then I woke up." His mother was silent for a long time. Finally, she spoke up:

"I'm glad you're telling me this now without your father here, just because of the degree that Dan scarred him mentally…the evil in you spoke the truth. Both you and he have an element of malevolence in you. It comes with being a ghost, I suppose. Anyway, a year after he got his powers, a ghost named Clockwork tried to kill your dad because he was supposed to grow up into the most powerful ghost in existence. He was powerful, but extremely evil, and he destroyed both our world and the Ghost Zone. The reason for this was because there was supposed to be an accident that killed Tucker, your grandparents, your aunt Jazz, me, and a teacher at our school, Mr. Lancer. The pain from having everyone he cared about dead supposedly caused him to ask to have his humanity ripped out. He had asked Vlad to do it, but I'll let him explain who that is. So Vlad ripped out Danny's humanity and he became a full-fledged, evil ghost. The ghost killed your father's human shell and fused with Plasmius to become Dan Phantom, the most powerful and evil ghost in history."

"But that never ended up happening?"

"No. Due to a mistake, Danny, Tucker, and I ended up ten years in the future, where Danny had to fight Dan. Tucker and I managed to get back to our own time just before Dan killed us, and Dan threw Danny into the future Ghost Zone, disguised himself as Danny, and came to our time in order to make sure the accident that killed us took place. Danny managed to get out of the future Ghost Zone and he fought Dan in the present. He won by using the Ghostly Wail for the first time ever. You've heard of it?" Harry nodded; no self-respecting fan of his father's wouldn't know about his most powerful and devastating ability. "Anyway, Danny won and Clockwork saved all of our lives, so Danny wouldn't have to live out that terrible future."

"And that scarred Dad for life?"

"Your dad pretty much has a hero complex; he'll sacrifice anything for the ones close to him. He was appalled by a future in which he was responsible for our deaths, as well as the deaths of the billions of people Dan killed during his ten-year rampage. He's always afraid of letting out the evil that he knows is inside of him because he's afraid of what it's capable of. I'm guessing that the fact that you're taking this whole evil thing so seriously indicates that you feel the same way."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Danny always says that you just have to keep a firm hold on your emotions. Don't let them control you, because when you do, you're just asking for the evil feelings such as greed and bloodlust govern your actions."

"I guess…"

"What did your evil self look like?"

"Sort of like me, like he was wearing my jumpsuit and everything, but his eyes were red, and his hair looked like it was on fire."

"Yeah, that's basically what Dan looked like, except for the fact that he had blue skin and pointed ears. Oh yeah, and a forked tongue. He probably got those from fusing with Plasmius, though."

"Why can't you tell me who Plasmius us?"

"Honestly? Because your sister is going to ask the same thing this evening and I don't want to have to explain twice in the same day. I'll let Danny do it over dinner." He gave a weak chuckle.

"Thanks, Mom. I feel a lot better now."

"No problem," she said, planting a kiss on his forehead. They both got up and started cleaning up the breakfast plates.

* * *

Yeah, I realize that it's short, but never fear: I'm already in the process of writing the next chapter. Thank you, Sleep Warrior, for always reviewing; I feel as though at this point I'm writing new chapters just for you. That's right. You feel special. 


	23. Voices in my head!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

After breakfast, Harry went upstairs to the spare room, where there was a full-length mirror. He stood still for a second, sensing around for the ghostly presence inside of him. After a minute, he realized that it had integrated with his human half; he felt more like a single entity with two forms than two separate being in sharing a body, like he did yesterday. He supposed that his dad was right and that all his body needed to get used to this new form was a good night's sleep. He concentrated for a second and allowed the coldness to wash over him as he became a ghost. He changed back into a human, and repeated the process a few more times until he was sure that he had gotten it.

Then, he jumped up and transformed in mid-air. This time, he stayed floating a foot above the ground. He practiced experimenting with shifting his weight over his center of gravity, and bobbed up and down like a hot air balloon trying to level out. Out of curiosity, he experimented with throwing his weight forward. He shot directly forward in a sort of pelvic thrust and only saved himself from shattering the mirror by going intangible. He gently sent his weight back and reversed direction until he was floating just in front of the mirror. At least he was, until he suddenly changed back and landed on the floor.

"Ow," he mumbled as he rubbed his posterior. "Okay, not to self, never try experimenting again without Dad being there."

_You got that right,_ a voice in his head responded.

"Who said that?" Harry asked, confused.

_It's me, idiot. Your ghost form. I'm communicating with you telepathically._

"Wait, you're not evil, right?" he felt the presence sigh.

_The evil you saw last night is only one aspect of who I am. It's a part of me that's always pushed down by my heroism._

"So I'm going to end up playing the hero, just like Dad did when he was a kid?"

_Yeah, basically. But you'll have an easier time than he did._

"Why's that?"

_You'll always have him to back you up. Danny never had an awesomely powerful halfa to back him up whenever he was in a tight spot._

"I guess so…I've been wondering about something-what are we? Are you just a different version of my mind, or are we actually two separate beings? And if that's the case, then do I become you when I go ghost, or do I just take on your form? And what happens to you when I'm a human?"

_Trust me, nobody knows exactly how this type of thing works. Not even your dad. Don't spend too much time worrying about it; you'll just go even crazier than you already are._

"What? I'm not crazy!"

_You're having a conversation with a little voice inside your head._

"True."

_Anyway, I have to go just now. Me and all of the other things living inside of your warped little mind play poker on Tuesdays. You'd be surprised how bad your common sense is at calling bluffs._

"Wait, how many of you are in there?" The young halfa asked worriedly. But the little voice had gone, leaving him to wonder whether or not he had multiple personalities. He'd have to talk to his dad about it that evening.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jaime had just met up with Tamara at the mall.

"Where were you?" The dark-skinned girl inquired. "I called your house at around noon, but your mom said that you couldn't pick up!"

"That's because I woke up this afternoon at around 2:00."

"Whoa…I didn't even know that it was _possible_ to sleep for that long. You must've been really wiped, but your brother's party wasn't _that_ wild.

"It wasn't the birthday party."

"What, you went clubbing after everyone else went home?"

"No, I did not go clubbing! Even if we could fake our ages enough to be able to get into one, my dad, brother, and I were too busy for me to go out."

"Why? What were the three of you doing? Were you talking about how Phantom saved us at that party? He's _sooo_ dreamy." Jaime rolled her eyes, and then grimaced when she remembered that Tamara was unknowingly talking about her dad.

"About Phantom…"

"What about him?"

"I just realized, I can't exactly say it with so many people around. Can we go to your house?"

"Sure, I guess so. But it's my parents day off today; it'll be tough to keep stuff from them finding out."

"That's no big deal. They probably already know anyway."

"What?" Tamara asked, slightly put out by the fact that everyone, including her parents, knew something that she didn't. "What do all of you know that I don't?"

"LATER!"

"Oh yeah…" The two girls hopped onto their scooters and scooted back to the Foley residence.

"Hey, girls, what's cookin'?" Tucker called from the living room as soon as they entered the house.

"Mashed potatoes and gravy," the two girls answered in a monotone; by now they were already used to Tamara's dad's corny jokes.

"Jaime says that you three all know something about Phantom that I don't" Tamara complained. Tucker and Valerie shot glances at each other.

"Why would we know anything about Phantom?" Valerie asked.

"Well, I don't know whether or not you knew, but I'm positive that you, Mr. Foley, were there when the accident happened, so you already know that he's my dad."

"Wait a minute-you're dad's Phantom?" Jaime nodded.

"Well, I still think he's dreamy," Tamara asserted. "Besides, your dad _is_ kind of cute."

"Eew, that's my dad you're talking about!"

"Well, Tamara," Tucker interrupted, "I don't know if you knew this, but your mom had a crush on Jaime's dad back in our sophomore year of high school." Valerie elbowed him.

"So how did you end up finding out?" She asked the youngest halfa while simultaneously changing the subject.

"He told us," Jaime replied. "Harry's and my ghost forms manifested themselves last night after the party, and he told us all about what was going on with us and even started working with us on our powers."

"You have powers now? This is too cool," Tamara said, awed.

"I wonder what your ghost forms look like," Tucker mused.

"I can show you if you want," said Jaime. She stood in the center of the room and concentrated until she felt a wave of coldness pass over her and the twin amethyst rings of light morphed her from Jaime Fenton to Jaime Phantom. She opened her eyes and saw Tamara's mom checking an odd sensor that was hanging from her belt.

"This says that a level 1 ghost just materialized in the room." She looked up to face Jaime. "You'll need to train some more if you plan on fighting any serious ghosts; even the Box Ghost is a level 2.5 by now."

"Oh, don't worry, I don't plan on fighting anything anytime soon. First I want to get the hang of these powers, then we'll see what happens."

"Speaking of which," Tamara interrupted. "Can we see some of your powers?"

"Sure," Jaime replied. She turned invisible for a couple of seconds, and then flickered back into the visible spectrum. Then, she held up her left hand, made the arm intangible up to the elbow and reached through the sofa with the intangible limb.

"Awesome," Tamara said, awed.

"Can you fly yet?" Tucker inquired.

"I can sort of float, but I don't want to do it now because when I tried yesterday I couldn't control it and the only thing that kept me from being on the moon right now is my dad's ghostly telekinesis."

"You mean your dad can move objects with his mind?" Tamara asked. Jaime nodded. "Can you do that?" She shook her head.

"Those three are the only powers I know how to use so far. My dad says that even he couldn't use some of the other ones until more than a month after getting his powers," Tucker cringed slightly.

"What's up?"

"Nothing, it's just…I was there when Danny first learned how to use ectoblasts. The first time he ever did it was when he fought Desiree, the wishing ghost, for the first time. It's kind of a bad memory for me because I got so jealous of Danny and his powers that I wished for powers just like his, and Desiree granted my wish. Unfortunately, the powers made me turn evil and Danny was only able to save me in the nick of time before the effects of the wish became permanent." He turned to Tamara. "I'm not going to tell you never to get jealous of Jaime and her abilities. You'd have to be inhuman not to get those feelings every once in a while. I _am_ telling you that when you start feeling jealousy, you need to tell one of us, especially Jaime. Keeping your feelings repressed will only hurt everyone around you, including yourself."

"It's also important that you don't keep too many secrets from each other, especially ones concerning ghosts," Valerie chimed in.

"What did you have to do with my dad when he was a kid?"

"Well, you know how I used to be Nasty Burger Inc.'s personal ghost hunter?"

"Yeah,"

"I first got my ghost gear when I was around fourteen. I had been really popular and shallow, and was always really mean to Danny and his friends, your father and Jaime's mom. Well, one day Phantom and this ghost dog barged into Axion labs where your grandpa Damon was the security director and trashed the place. Dad was fired because of it, and that dog made my leaving popularity and going into poverty a living hell."

"Yeah, I remember Cujo," Tucker said with a laugh. His wife glared at him, and he shut up immediately.

"Anyway, I was really angry at the dog and at Phantom, who I had believed to be the dog's owner. On our first day in our new dingy apartment a package arrived for me from Wisconsin, full of ghost hunting gear. I thought about the way Phantom had ruined my life, and on that day I swore to hunt him down. I became the Red Hunter and chased after him for a couple of years. That is, until I saw him transform in an alley once and realized that Danny Phantom, my sworn enemy, was actually Danny Fenton, shy but cute friend that I was slightly crushing on. That moment made me remember all of the times we had fought, when he would hold back against me because he didn't want to hurt me. He could easily have destroyed me, I know that now, but he didn't. He must have known that it was me behind the mask."

"He did," Tucker interrupted. "He knew since day 1."

"How did he find out?"

"Apparently you barged in on his and Sam's fake out-make out and said something, and they figured out based on your voice who you really were."

"Oh…anyway, I felt really bad about trying to kill him so many times, and I was also kind of in awe of the way he tried being nice and friendly to me even though he knew that I was constantly trying to destroy him. He was even willing to start a relationship with me despite the fact that he knew I would never accept him as half ghost. I respected him for that, and promised him that I'd stop hunting him from then on. I still felt bad, so I helped him land a job at Axion after college through my dad, and the rest his history."

"So you basically tried to kill my dad on numerous occasions?" Jaime probed, her face set in stone.

"Yeah, basically," the older woman replied, shifting nervously. Jaime stared her down for a minute, but then her face melted into a soft smile.

"Well, I guess if Dad could forgive you then so can I."

"Thanks, Jaime. That means a lot to me…Oh, I almost forgot!" She jumped up from the sofa where she and Tucker had been sitting and began digging through a nearby closet. Jaime caught glimpses of various chrome objects, ranging from a miniscule ectogun to what appeared to be a mechanical sled with jets and missiles attached to it. Valerie came back into the living room holding a Fenton Fisher.

"The line in this fishing rod is made of a material that ghosts can't break." She tied one end around Jaime's ankle and the other to the leg of the sofa. "Hopefully, if you lose control and can't stop flying, this'll act as an anchor and keep you from going into deep space. Although I don't think you'd be able to anyway; you're dad was only able to fly into space when he was wearing a special jetpack that Axion had been working on."

"He flew in space?"

"Yeah, he and I had a fight up there; I'll let him go into details, though. Well, are you going to try flying now or what?" Jaime raised her weight just above her center of gravity and rose into the air. She quickly brought it back down to a comfortable level, and remained floating three feet up with plenty of slack left in the Fenton Fisher.

"I think I'm starting to get the hang of this!" She shouted excitedly. She ascended a little more, and then stopped. She rose a little, and then stopped. She continued in this pattern a couple more times, but then the Fenton Fisher ran out of slack and she was forced to return to the ground.

"Thanks, Mrs. Foley," she said as Valerie untied both ends of the ghost-proof line and stowed the device back in the closet.

"No problem," she replied.

"You know," Tucker observed, "You look a lot like Danny did early on, except for the streaks in your hair and your eye color. His eyes are pure green, not speckled with amethyst. And his jumpsuit had white on it instead of purple."

"I know; this is the jumpsuit that my grandparents gave me yesterday. Harry's ghost form is wearing his jumpsuit also, which is basically green instead of this violet. His eyes are also different; they're green speckled with purple."

"So basically, the part of your eye color that you get from Danny is also the part that changes to green when you're a ghost."

"I guess so…and we get the amethyst part from Mom?"

"Sam's the only person I've ever met with that color eyes, so it must be." He glanced at the clock over in the kitchen. "Whoa, it's past five already. I'll go get dinner started." He got up from the sofa. Jaime thought that it was about time she got home as well; she didn't want to overstay her welcome at the Foley's, after all.

"I should probably be getting home too. Call you later?"

"Sure," Tamara replied just before Jaime left for home. The young halfa hopped on her electric scooter and scooted back to her house. _I wonder when I'll be strong enough to fly from place to place,_ she mused. She saw the ancient black car with green flames painted on the front pulled into the driveway, which meant that her father was home from work. _He's had that car since high school! Why won't he sell it already? Oh yeah, it's brimming with anti-ghost weaponry, that's why._ She thought as she parked her scooter in the garage and entered the house. She saw her parents working on dinner in the kitchen and her brother reading a book in the living room and determined that it would be half an hour until dinner. She decided to listen to her iPod in her room until then.

Half an hour later, the Fenton family gathered around a steaming tray of lasagna. They hungrily dug in, both children quickly forgetting that they had eaten breakfast a mere three hours before.

"Dad, I have a couple of questions about our powers," Harry began.

"Me too," Jaime said.

"One second, Harry came first. What do you want to know, son?"

"She can go first. My questions have to do with how our entities are divided among our human and ghost halves, and who the heck Plasmius is. It'll probably take longer than what she wants to know."

"Yeah, I was just wondering if you had really fought Tamara's mom in outer space."

"Oh…yeah, one time there was a ghost named Technus who took over a super-satellite that Axion labs had out in space. I had to strap on a jetpack that they were building and blast off to try and get him out, but Valerie was hot on my tail. I accidentally knocked her out, and it made me so angry that I set the jetpack into overdrive and launched it into Technus mouth. He ate it and blew up, and I rode back down to earth hiding on Val's jet sled."

"Cool, Dad."

"Yeah, right?" They chatted for a couple of minutes about the wonders of space flight, until Harry interrupted.

"So, Dad, who's Plasmius?" Danny glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was going to be a _long_ night.

* * *

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM! 


	24. Plasmius

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

"First off: how do you know about Plasmius in the first place?"

"It came to me in a dream last night."

"Fair enough; are you really sure you want to know?"

"Dad, are you trying to avoid the subject? What's so bad about this guy that you don't want to talk about him?"

"Nothing…at least not anymore. It's just that Plasmius is…complicated. It could take a few hours for me to totally explain it properly."

"It's okay, we've got time. Jaime and I woke up about three hours ago; we're not going to fall asleep any time soon."

"Fine, fine…I guess I'll start at the beginning, then. The story of Plasmius begins when your grandparents were in college. That's like, the 1980's, for reference. Dad's college roommate was a guy by the name of Vlad Masters. The two of them were inseparable, and they were lab partners along with your grandma. Unfortunately, both of them had a crush on her but they were both too afraid to wreck their friendship with each other over it. One day, the three of them were working in the lab on an early version of the Fenton Portal; they called it the Proto-Portal. Vlad was leaned over it, looking at something, when my dad threw the switches and activated it. Vlad was hit in the face with a huge amount of ghost energy, and as a result he had developed a serious case of ecto-acne."

"But what does this have to do with a ghost named Plasmius?" Harry asked.

"You'll see in a second, stop being so impatient. Anyway, Vlad was hospitalized for a couple of years because of the acne, and during that time my parents started dating and eventually they got married. Vlad was really pissed about this because he believed that my dad had purposely engineered the lab accident so that Vlad would be out of the way and he could make his move on my mom. Vlad swore vengeance, and when he discovered that the accident had made him half ghost, just like me and just like both of you, he plotted to use his powers to kill my dad and win over my mom."

"Whoa…that guy _totally_ needs to get a cat," Jaime noted. Danny roared with laughter.

"See, that's what I kept telling him, but he'd never listen to me…anyway, Vlad used his powers to amass an enormous amount of wealth and power both on earth and in the Ghost Zone, and he called his ghost form Vlad Plasmius."

"Is he powerful?"

"Are you joking? He has all of our powers, and twenty more years of experience using them than I do. The first time we fought, at my parents' college reunion, he beat me in about five seconds flat, trapped me in this cube-thing that neutralized my powers, and offered for me to join him and become his apprentice."

"And you declined."

"Of course I declined! I'm not evil, right?"

"I'm guessing that he wouldn't leave you alone after that, right?" Harry asked.

"Nope. Plasmius doesn't give up that easily. A few months after the reunion, he created a fake scientific body called the Dalv Group and invited my mom and I to a weekend-long science symposium. Then, one of his ghostly servants forced us out of the plane and made us parachute right outside of his mountain retreat. He used a ghost bear to separate me from my mom and shocked me with the Plasmius Maximus, which short-circuited my powers for three hours. Then, he sent an army of ghost animals after my mom, as well as a second army after my dad, who was at home at the time. Fortunately, both of them beat back all of the ghosts without too much trouble. I tricked him into wearing a belt that shocks any ghost that comes into direct contact with whoever is wearing it, so that it weakened him enough for me to beat him. After that I shocked him with his own Plasmius Maximus and convinced the ghost animals to chase him instead of me."

"How did he survive a thing like that?"

"Honestly? To this day I still haven't figured it out."

"But he still wouldn't give up, I'd imagine."

"Nope. A month after that, he put a million dollar bounty on my head and then hired the worlds best-known ghost hunters to Amity Park to find me and hunt me down."

"Why would he hire people and _then _put a bounty on you? That makes no sense!"

"I guess he wanted to give them even more incentive after they were already on the payroll. Anyway, the majority of these guys were so incompetent I bet either of you could take them down easily. And you've had your powers for all of 24 hours, mind you."

"Why would he do something like that when he already knew that it wouldn't work?"

"So that he could keep my parents distracted enough to disassemble our Fenton Portal and steal it. He needed ours because he'd forgotten to change the ecto-filtrator on his own portal and it blew up and took his castle with it."

"And you managed to beat him back into the Ghost Zone?"

"Actually, no. My dad did that."

"Wait a minute, grandpa Fenton did that? No way!"

"Way. Never underestimate your grandpa when he's fighting for his family." Harry and Jaime each gave low whistles. They never knew Grandpa Jack was competent enough to catch a ghost at all, let alone Plasmius!

"But that doesn't come close to the time he freed the Ghost King."

"What?"

"Have you ever heard of the time the King of All Ghosts sucked our town into the Ghost Zone?"

"I heard someone mention it once. Why?"

"The reason it happened was that Vlad had the Ring of Rage, which gave the wearer unlimited power when used in conjunction with the Crown of Fire. However, to get the crown, he had to take it from the king's head. So, he used his Skeleton Key to unlock the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep and freed the Ghost King, an enormous ghost named Pariah Dark. What Vlad didn't expect was for Pariah to be strong enough to beat _him_ with one move. Pariah beat the crap out of Vlad, conquered the Ghost Zone, sucked Amity into the Ghost Zone, and almost took over the world."

"And I bet you ended up being the one that had to stop him, right?"

"Of course. But I wasn't powerful enough on my own. I needed to take an invention that my parents had been working on, the Fenton Exo-Skeleton. It increases a person's power a hundredfold, but taps directly into their central nervous system and drains their energy so using it can be fatal. I used the suit at beat him, but the battle almost killed me; the suit was down to 2 efficiency when I blacked out."

"How did you get out?"

"Vlad took me out of the suit, hid the thing, brought me back to my family and became a hero, and later on stole the suit and hid it in his secret lab."

"That snake!"

"Ya think? But that's not the worst thing he's done. I think that for the record, what made me the most angry was when he infected your mom and Tucker with ecto-acne." They stared at him in shock.

"Why would he stoop to something that low?"

"Because he was having a relapse and he figured that if their fate was the same as his own, I would be more inclined to search for a cure."

"Did you find one?"

"Your mom is acne free, isn't she?"

"True. So where is Vlad now?"

"Now? I'm not afraid of Vlad and his plots anymore. I believe that he's turned good."

"Are you kidding? After all he's done to you?"

"When your mom and I had just started dating, in our senior year of high school, we were invited to the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady's wedding. At the party, Vlad told us that he was done chasing after my mom because he finally realized that it wouldn't do any good. Since then, he's married a ghost named Saphira and they're living in his castle in Wisconsin."

"So, did you and mom get a little action in during the after-party, if you know what I mean?" Jaime asked slyly.

"No, we did not lose our virginity to each other in the Specter Speeder right after the party, we swear!" Danny and Sam shouted at the same time.

"Eew, gross, now I won't be able to fall asleep tonight with those images going through my mind!" Harry wailed.

"Enough whining, you two should get to bed, it's a quarter after eleven." The kids sighed and dragged their feet upstairs.

"That was your first time too?" Sam asked once their children had entered their won rooms.

"Yeah," he replied. "Who else would I have lost it to?" she shrugged.

"I don't know, but you were really good considering it was your first time." he blushed.

"Thanks. So were you." Now it was her turn to blush.

"What are we doing blushing? We've done it since then. We've had two children together, for chrissake!" He asked.

"So many years of denying how we really felt must have scarred us more deeply than we had hoped."

"Well, we'll have to remedy that, now won't we?"

"How do you me-" she was cut off by his lips mashing against hers. She leaned into his kiss and simultaneously opened her mouth, allowing his tongue to explore its interior. She ran her tongue along the side of his and they promptly began to wrestle for supremacy. It was unclear who had won by the time they needed to stop for air.

"Did that…make up…for years…of denial?" he panted.

"It's…a start," she replied, and they threw themselves at each other once more.

* * *

To be honest, when I started writing this I thought that it would be longer. I mean, come on, Plasmius? I feel as though 1600 words just doesn't do him justice, but I guess it'll have to do.

HAPPY SECOND ANNIVERSARY, DANNY!


	25. At the Mall

**Disclaimer:I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

The next morning, Harry and Jaime woke up at a more reasonable hour; both of them came down for breakfast at around 9:30. Once again, their mother was already awake so she made them breakfast again.

"Do you trust Vlad?" Jaime asked her.

"To be honest? No. Not after everything he's done. But Danny does and we've learned to just respect our differences on the subject," Sam replied.

"I don't believe that he's good," Harry asserted, his eyes narrowed.

"I'm not sure," Jamie reasoned. "Despite everything Dad said, I've still never met the guy, so I'm not going to make any character judgments just yet."

"Hopefully you'll never have to meet him. If you ever do run into him, it's probably going to be one of his plots to get you to join him or something. Just remember to be careful around him," Sam warned.

"Hopefully we'll never need to worry about it. Come on, sis, let's go to the mall." Both of them kissed their mom goodbye, hopped onto their electric scooters, and headed over to Amity Park Mall.

They were drinking milkshakes in the food court when part of the A-list drifted by them. In other words, all of the jocks, cheerleaders, and other preps were grouped together in a massive group of impenetrable popularity. Jaime noticed that her brother had forgotten his milkshake and was staring dazedly at one of the leaders of the group.

"Katrina…" he mumbled, his gaze fixed on the Latino girl.

"You can't be serious," Jaime chided.

"Why not?" Harry asked, coming out of his daze.

"Katrina Baxter? Oh, I don't know, maybe because _she's out of your league!_"

"What? That's ridiculous."

"Right" she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "And even if she _did _want to go out with you, there's her twin brother Josh you need to watch out for." They both fixed calculating gazes on the brother in question, a broad, black-haired boy with medium-to-light skin coloration. He was wearing one of Casper High's signature leather jackets and was joking around with his fellow jocks.

"I really can't see how they're related, much less twins," Jaime commented.

"They're fraternal, genius."

"I know _that._ It's just…he looks so much fairer than she does."

"Have you ever seen their parents?"

"No, why, have you?"

"Yeah, they chaperoned our dance back in eighth grade. He's really Caucasian, blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin, the works. She's Hispanic, and almost looks like an older version of Katrina."

"I wonder if Mom and Dad knew them when they were in high school." He shrugged.

"We can always ask tonight."

"Nah, I don't want to make them have to go through another explanation of their childhood for us. We can always just look at their yearbooks."

"True." Just then, Katrina walked up to the table where the Fenton siblings were relaxing. The rest of the A-list was nowhere in sight.

"Yoo-hoo, Harry!" she cooed. Harry sat there, dazed.

"M-me?" He finally stammered. Katrina giggled.

"Yes, you, silly. I was just wondering if you could do me a really huge favor and…"

"And what?" He asked eagerly.

"I was wondering if you would go…" _please say 'go out with me' please say 'go out with me' please say go out with me'_ he pleaded with the fates. However, instead of a date, he got a really cold sensation creeping down his back. Harry slowly reached back and yanked his hand away when he felt a chilly semisolid. He looked at his fingertips and realized that they were covered in chocolate ice cream. He turned around angrily to see Josh, who had clearly just shoved his ice cream down the smaller boy's shirt. Josh crossed over to the other side of the table to join his sister, who was cackling hysterically.

"If you would go away and stop chasing me, loser!" She smirked and the two of them left, no doubt to relate their story to the rest of their preppy comrades. Harry simmered for a bit, then realized that someone was tapping him on the shoulder.

"What?" He asked, agitated, as he turned around to face his sister.

"Okay, one, don't yell at me since I'm on your side. Two, we should clean this stuff up so that it doesn't stain your clothes permanently and make your skin all sticky. And three, the part of your eyes that are normally blue are glowing green." Harry took a few deep breaths with his eyes closed, and then opened them again.

"Now they're better," she reported.

"I guess that happens whenever we're really angry or something."

"I guess. Hey, that gives me an idea, maybe you can go intangible to get this ice cream off you."

"I don't know…it's a lot easier to do in ghost mode, and I can't exactly transform with so many people around."

"Just try it. See what happens."

"Fine." He concentrated for a second and made himself intangible, so that the ice cream fell through him and landed on the floor. "Hey, I did it!" He said excitedly.

"Yeah, great, now try and stop it before you sink into the ground again." He looked down and, sure enough, he was submerged halfway up to his knees. He jumped up and regained tangibility so that he landed with his feet on solid ground. His face contorted into a mischievous smirk.

"Maybe I can use these powers to get back at Josh."

"Nah…we've had our powers for what, three days? There's no way we're strong enough to actually pull offa good prank yet. Besides, you really shouldn't be abusing them like that."

"Yeah, I guess you're right…"

"You know I'm right," she asserted. "Do you want to get some more ice cream?"

"Nah, I think I've had my fill of cold stuff for today. Anything you need while we're here?"

"Yeah, I should get a pair of headphones at the music store; mine are getting kind of worn out and they're due for a replacement."

"C'mon." The siblings threw away their milkshake containers and walked over to the music store, where Jaime picked out a set of blue headphones. They went to the cashier, who rang up the purchase. Jaime opened her pocketbook and pulled out a few bills.

"What? I don't believe it! I'm just a dollar short!"

"It's alright, I'll cover you this time," Harry began as he reached for his wallet.

"That won't be necessary," a third voice said. The Fenton kids turned around and saw a third teen who looked to be a bit younger than Harry, but a little older than Jaime. His jeans were slightly frayed around the knees, and he was wearing a black AC/DC shirt. He had messy brown hair and dark green eyes. He pulled out five dollars and bought the headphones, and then handed them to Jaime.

"Thanks," she said, a slight blush tingeing her cheeks.

"No problem. What did you say your name was?"

"She didn't." Harry said flatly. Jaime elbowed him in the arm.

"I'm Jaime Fenton. And you?"

"Andrew Volta." She giggled nervously.

"I like your shirt. It goes well with your name," she said.

"Thanks." A slight blush appeared on _his_ cheek. "My dad says that AC/DC was huge when he was growing up."

"Yeah, my parents listen to them all the time." Harry began shifting from one foot to the other impatiently.

"What's wrong?" Andrew asked him.

"Nothing, it's just…we were kind of in a hurry and we're going to be late…"

"Oh, then I don't want to keep you. See you around, I hope. Bye, Jaime…"

"Bye, Andrew…" The boy walked away.

"What is your problem?" She angrily asked her older brother.

"What are you talking about?"

"You scared him off! How could you do something like that?"

"Jaime, we don't even know who he is."

"I do! He's in the grade above me at the middle school. He's really shy, but I think that he's really cute. And you made him leave!"

"Sorry…I just…got into 'overprotective older sibling mode,' I guess."

"You got that right!" she said, and stalked off.

"Jaime, wait!" He followed her back to the parking lot where she was getting onto her scooter. "I didn't know that you felt that way about him."

"Well, maybe you should have found out before getting rid of him!" she shouted and zoomed away in the direction of their house. He sighed, got onto his scooter, and followed her.

Harry arrived home to find his mother adjusting a photograph that was mounted on the wall in a hallway.

"All right, what did you do?" she asked.

"What?"

"Jaime came home two minutes ago. She was crying hysterically, and yelled something about you and a kid named Andrew, then ran up to her room. What happened?"

"Well, we were at the record store and Jaime didn't have enough money to buy the pair of headphones she wanted. This kid Andrew came up and bought them for her, and they started having a conversation. I got a little overprotective of her, and said that we had to go so that Andrew would leave us alone. He walked away and Jaime just snapped at me. She ran away and I followed her here." Sam sighed.

"I know that this is going to be tough for you, but you have to let her get into her own relationships. You can't be so overprotective of her."

"But what if one of the guys does something nasty to her?"

"Then you can beat the crap out of them, either with or without ghost powers. But the chances of that happening are infinitesimal. Jaime's a smart girl. She won't start going out with someone seriously if they're that type of guy. You know that." She fell silent, and Harry smirked a bit.

"What?"

"I was just curious…did Dad get very overprotective of you or Aunt Jazz?"

"You're kidding, right? I think Jazz went through more boyfriends than the captain of the cheerleading squad at our high school, he scared so many away. And while we were at college, he successfully convinced every single frat boy on campus that if they came within fifty feet of me, he'd scorch the only thing making them able to get with a girl in the first place to a crisp."

"Ouch."

"Ouch is right. But he didn't actually do anything; just the threats and a few near-misses were effective enough."

"Okay, now I see where I get it from."

"Hey, don't give him all the credit; I had to beat down my fair share of competitors."

"I thought that you two had started dating in your senior year of high school."

"We did. But Danny was a real hottie back when we were in our early twenties, and a fair-sized chunk of the female student population wanted a piece of him."

"Are you implying that I'm ugly now?" A disembodied voice asked.

"Danny, come out," Sam said, the large grin on her face belying her annoyed tone. He complied and materialized just to her left. He was sitting on the table in human form, but he quickly got up, walked over to her, and kissed her hello. They broke apart and he turned to Harry.

"I had a talk with Jaime. She's feeling a lot better, but I told her that she can't expect you to behave perfectly around her male friends." Father and son wore twin evil grins.

"Danny, you're supposed to tell him to be nicer to her boyfriends." He shrugged.

"It's like my dad always said-teenage boys are like wild animals. If they can get past Harry, then they're sure to be good enough for our Jaime."

"The male Peking order never ceases to astound me," Sam said dryly. "Come on, let's get dinner ready." The two of them headed into the kitchen.

* * *

Well, this waslonger than the last one and less explanations. You like? 


	26. Like father, like son

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Sam and Danny went into the kitchen and began preparing dinner. Harry ascended the staircase and knocked on Jaime's door in the hopes of speaking to her and apologizing for his actions earlier that day at the mall.

"Who's there?" She asked.

"It's me, Harry." He heard her muffled sigh through the door.

"I guess you can come in." Harry entered the room and his first thought was that there had been some sort of struggle. All of the furniture was askew and most of the things normally littering her desk were now on the floor. He looked at her and noticed that she appeared as though she had been crying; her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were moist.

"What do you want?" She asked tiredly.

"I want to apologize. I-"

"There's nothing to apologize for," she interrupted. "You were just trying to protect me, and I'm thankful for that."

"Yeah, but I took it too far. Just because I worry about you, doesn't mean I have to smother you. I'm sorry for not thinking about how my actions would affect you." He gave a weak chuckle, and extended his hand to her.

"Friends again?" She took the offered hand and shook it.

"As always. You need to get some friends your own age."

"Hey, it's not my fault Zach is visiting relatives in New York and Taylor is vacationing in Florida with her family right now."

"True. Are you going to tell them?"

"About what?" She slapped her forehead.

"About our powers, genius."

"Oh yeah, those. I'm not sure yet; It'll be tough to hide my powers from them, and I don't want to end up having to lie to my best friends, so I think that I should tell them early on so that they don't get suspicious."

"And you're sure you can trust them?"

"Well, I've known them for eight years now and they've seemed trustworthy, so I think so."

"Kids, dinner," Sam's voice floated up from downstairs.

"C'mon," he said, and the two of them left her room. They sat down at the table and dug into some of the delicious pasta that their parents had prepared.

"So, kids, when do you start school?" Danny asked.

"Both of us are set to start on September 2nd," Harry replied.

"So you still have two weeks of freedom left." It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact. They chucked.

"Did you really hate school that much as a kid, Dad?" he shuddered.

"You have no idea. My English teacher, Mr. Lancer was so evil."

"Lancer? That's the name of the vice principal. Bald, sharp beard, pot belly?"

"The very same. Wow, I can't believe he's still teaching. You'd think we would've convinced him to retire by graduation, right?" he asked, elbowing Sam in the arm.

"Yeah, we sure gave him a lot of grief. But he had it coming; he never respected my initiative to save the frogs."

"But he liked it when you changed the menu to all URV."

"Yeah, so that he could keep all of the meat for himself at the faculty buffet."

"True."

"You'd better not use your powers to prank him, young man," Sam warned.

"Trust me," Danny added, "whatever you try and do to him, I've already done. So don't waste your time trying." Harry and Jaime erupted into peals of laughter.

"Danny, you're supposed to deter them from pranking Lancer." He shrugged.

"You know it's true, though."

"Yeah, but you wailed on Dash a lot more than you did Lancer."

"Wait a minute, Dash Baxter?" Jaime asked.

"Yeah, why?" Sam returned. Harry and Jaime shot glances at each other.

"It's just…we met his kids today."

"I never knew that Dash had married," said Danny thoughtfully. "What happened at the mall with them?"

"Harry was staring at his daughter Katrina and her brother Josh poured his ice cream down his shirt," Jaime explained.

"Katrina? Then that must mean…" Sam began.

"Paulina." Danny finished. There was a short silence, and then suddenly Sam burst into raucous laughter.

"Like father like son," she choked out. Danny began blushing profusely.

"Hey, I married you, didn't I?" He replied as Sam calmed down.

"Yeah, I guess you did."

"Is Paulina Katrina and Josh's mom?" Jaime asked.

"Well, we think so," Danny replied.

"So how am I like you, Dad?" Harry inquired.

"I'll answer that one," Sam interrupted. "When we were freshmen Danny was obsessed with the most popular girl in school, someone named Paulina Sanchez. He would always ask her out, she would reject him, and then Dash and all of the other jocks would shove him into his locker or something."

"Hey, she did go out with me that one time…"

"Yeah, when she was possessed by a ghost." Harry and Jaime snorted.

"Yeah, well, if Katrina's anything like her mother then she'll fall in love with your ghost half, so you'll have to watch out for that," Danny warned his son.

"So she was in love with you, but with the wrong you."

"Basically. But the worst part was that I was too clueless to realize that the love of my life had been right under my nose the whole time," he said as he stole a kiss from Sam.

"Gross, guys, not at the table," Harry and Jaime began protesting at once. Danny and Sam just blushed and averted their gazes.

"So anyway…" Danny began in an attempt to break the awkward silence that had ensued. "I found that overshadowing seems to be the most effective mode of payback."

"Danny!"

"It's true! Yeah, ectoblasts are fun and destructive, but nothing gets to a jock or cheerleader more than embarrassment, and having them sing 'I'm a little teapot' and do the dance in the cafeteria during lunch is a great way to embarrass someone."

"Don't listen to your father, kids, you shouldn't seek revenge unless someone does something really nasty to you or someone you know." Danny sighed.

"I guess your mom's right. Revenge is something that I grew out of by the end of sophomore year, both because it's immature and because I ran out of pranks. Except for that one time right before spring break of senior year…"

"Yeah, but that was totally called for," Sam reasoned.

"I know. That's why I don't regret it."

"What happened?" Jaime asked.

"Dash tried to make a move on your mom, so I got Paulina to accuse him of sexually assaulting her."

"You're right, Josh's dad probably did deserve that," Harry mused.

"Not probably, definitely. Nobody makes a move on my Sam and gets away with it," Danny asserted as he stole another kiss. His kids made retching noises and excused themselves from the table.

* * *

Okay, a little intermission there. I think that I'll have them work with their powers a little more next chapter, but since I haven't begun to write it yet who knows for sure?

SAVE DANNY PHANTOM!


	27. School Spirit

Yeah, I know it's been a while, but you'd think that being on spring break for two weeks would give me time to write something like ten chapters, right? Wrong! Trust me, I've been lucky to have had time to eke out this one chapter. Oh yeah, and as an added bonus I fixed up chapters 1-6 so that the dialogue isaligned more coherently. Well, I won't keep you any longer. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

Ahh, the first day of high school. A fresh start for those cursed with unpopularity throughout middle school. A new chance to make friends and start relationships, a breath of fresh air in a new learning environment…aw, who am I kidding? High school sucks, especially for someone as unpopular as Harry Fenton. He hadn't been in school for more than five minutes when Josh Baxter shoved him into a locker. He didn't even know whose locker it was, as they hadn't had orientation yet and hadn't been assigned lockers. It would have been easier had his sister been there so that they could support each other, but she was in seventh grade so she still went to the local middle school. Thank god for friends, anyway.

Harry had two of the best friends anyone could ask for. Zach was the tallest member of the group, standing at five feet, six inches. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and usually wore a gray T-shirt and jeans. He also was inseparable from his signature navy-blue Michigan baseball cap. Taylor was just a bit shorter than Zach at 5'5". She had black, shoulder-length hair that she always wore down and green eyes. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt underneath a plaid, long-sleeved shirt that was rolled up at the sleeves, black converse shoes, and a black baseball cap jammed backwards over her hair. At the moment, she was frantically trying to test different combinations on the locker while Zach was reassuring Harry that they'd find someone to get him out…eventually.

"Don't worry about it guys, I've got everything under control," Harry's voice reached them from the interior of the locker. "Is anybody else watching us?"

"As if anyone would pay attention to a couple of nobodies," Zach replied sarcastically.

"Good," Harry rejoined and phased out of the locker. He rematerialized standing in-between his two friends.

"I forgot you could do that," Zach thought out loud. "It's gonna be weird getting used to you having these powers," he mused.

"Not as weird as actually having to get used to them, believe me."

"So your dad had them when he was in high school also?" Taylor inquired.

"Yeah, he got his just before freshman year."

"Did he ever use the phantom advantage for some ghostly get-back?" Zach asked, a mischievous grin appearing on his face.

"Oh yeah. Which reminds me," Harry replied with a mirror image of Zach's grin. He went intangible, flew into Josh, and made the jock run headlong into a couple of lockers. He then left the boy to deal with his sudden, inexplicable migraine. He rematerialized and gave Zach a high-five.

"You know, you really shouldn't be abusing your powers like that," Taylor chastised. Harry sighed and the three friends headed into orientation.

"I guess you're right. I mean, my dad _did_ say that he only got ghostly revenge on people for really serious stuff.

"And by serious stuff you mean…?"

"The school bully making a move on my mom,"

"Ah,"

"Bull," Zach asserted. "I'm sure your dad was all mature," he made quotation marks in the air, "when he got older, but knowing him I'd say that when he was fourteen he was one of the most prolific and proficient pranksters around."

"Whoa…prolific? Proficient? You're giving me a headache with these huge words," Harry whined as he held his head in his hands.

"Relax, Harry. It's not his fault he can be a bit of a geek sometimes," said Taylor.

"I'm not a techno-geek!" Zach shouted.

"I never said anything about technology," Taylor argued.

"Yeah, but every geek has some sort of hi-tech stuff on them. I don't, therefore I'm not a geek."

"You're not a techno-geek, but you're still a geek. Face it."

"As soon as you face the fact that you're a Goth."

"I am so not Goth. Do you see black anywhere on this outfit?"

"Besides the cap and shoes, you mean?" Taylor blushed.

"So I have a bit of a negative outlook on life. That doesn't make me Goth," she countered.

"Mr. Fenton!" The principal's voice rang out from the stage. Mr. Lancer strode over to the three friends. He was considerably more rotund than he had been in Danny's day, as well as more wrinkly. In addition to this, his pointy beard was no longer black; it was white splotched with shades of gray.

"If you can't keep your friends quiet, I'm going to have to separate the three of you," he warned. Then, more to himself than anyone else he muttered, "I could swear that I had the exact same problem with your father," He strode to the podium again.

"It appears that several of the products of my former students are joining the ranks of Casper High this year. We have the children of Dash Baxter and Paulina Sanchez," Josh and Katrina stood up and bowed their heads in clearly faked modesty. "As well as Kwan Cho and Star Astra," a boy that looked to be of Asian descent but with very fair skin also stood. His letter-jacket indicated that he was also on the football team and as such was one of Josh's cronies. "And, last but not least, Danny Fenton and Sam Manson," Harry stood up and the other three shot him nasty glares.

"Now," Mr. Lancer continued. "Although it appears as though most of you resemble your parents more than you may realize, don't even begin to think that you'll be afforded any special treatment because of their merits or shortcomings. You all come to me objectively; you are equal to each other and the other freshman in every way. The only thing being the offspring of former pupils gives me is the opportunity to avoid some of the shortcomings that your parents had here, such as Mr. Baxter's D average or Mr. Fenton's frequent unexplained absences and disappearances during ghost drills." Harry, Zach, and Taylor all shot ominous looks at each other. "Of course, hopefully there won't be as many ghost attacks as there were back in your parents days, and we have Inviso-Bill to protect us, but even so…" his voice trailed off dramatically leaving most of the occupants of the room feeling slightly nervous, except for one student for whom any feelings of fear were replaced by rage.

"He's not Inviso-Bill! How many times does he have to tell this town that his name is Danny Phantom!" Harry shouted. An awkward silence followed.

"Since this is your first day I'll excuse you, Mr. Fenton, but if you ever let your emotions get the better of you I'll be seeing you in my office pronto. Kapische?" Lancer finally said in a cold voice.

"Kapische," Harry replied softly and sank back down into his seat.

"Now, if nobody else feels like interrupting, form an orderly line and come up here so I can give you your class schedules and locker combinations." Everyone stood up and shuffled towards the stage.

"Whoa, man, that was harsh of him," Zach muttered to his friends.

"It's okay, I can deal. Besides, I shouldn't have shouted like that. If I can't control myself then I might totally expose my dad, sister, and I," Harry replied.

"Stop beating yourself up over it," Taylor reassured him. "Yeah, you probably shouldn't have shouted at Lancer on your first day, but at the same time you have every right to defend your dad." They approached the stage and got the necessary items from Mr. Lancer. Thankfully, their lockers weren't too far apart from each other and the three of them had most of their classes together. The throng of students moved towards the doors to the auditorium when suddenly Harry breathed out a wisp of green smoke.

"What was that?" Taylor inquired.

"Dad calls is a ghost sense," Harry whispered back. "It means that there's a ghost around and I have to take care of it. But I'll need a private place to transform."

"Why can't your dad take care of it?"

"He says that one of the best ways for us to train is by fighting ghosts just like he did at our age. Besides, he says that school is nowhere near as important to miss as work."

"I'll take his word for it," Zach muttered as Skulker phased downward into the crowded auditorium. Everyone screamed and swarmed out of the room. Mr. Lancer pulled the fire alarm and followed them. Once everyone except the trio was gone, Harry transformed in a flash of green light and flew up to meet his opponent.

"Well, well, well," the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter mocked the hybrid. "If it isn't the spawn of my old prey, Phantom. If my employer didn't have an important use for you then I'd be hunting you like the animal you are right now, but fortunately for you I'll have to content myself with this!" A Fenton Thermos popped out of his right arm and sucked Harry inside. At this point Skulker noticed his two friends standing there in shock. He flew down to them.

"Boo."

They both screamed and ran outside, right into Mr. Lancer.

"What's the matter with the two of you? And where's Mr. Fenton?" Zach and Taylor shot glances at each other.

"He…was kidnapped by that ghost!" Zach finally replied.

"What! We need to get him back! I'll go inform our town's leading expert on ghosts. I'm sure that, given the circumstances, we'll be able to get him away from his job to work on this." He turned his back on them and headed over to the emergency phone.

"Wait! Who'se the town's leading expert on ghosts?" Taylor shouted to him. Lancer looked back towards her with a smirk on his face.

"Why, Mr. Fenton, of course."


	28. Old Habits

Guess what? I'm back from Florida! You know what that means-more new chapters. In fact, I wrote this one and most of the next one while on the plane.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom**

* * *

"WHAT! Of course I'll be there!" Danny Fenton hung up the phone and turned to his secretary.

"There's been a ghost attack at Casper High that I need to investigate. I'm not sure how long it'll take."

"But Mr. Fenton, you have a meeting in ten minutes-"

"Postpone it. The ghost supposedly kidnapped a student; that kind of takes precedence over the board of directors." He grabbed his coat and hat and made his way to his car.

Approximately five minutes later, the black car with painted green flames pulled into the parking lot of Casper High. Danny noticed that the entire school was standing outside. _Lancer must have pulled the fire alarm,_ he thought. He jumped out of the car and approached his ex-teacher.

"I see you're driving the same car as ever, Mr. Fenton."

"No time for pleasantries, Mr. Lancer. What are the details of the kidnapping?"

"I'll take you to his friends; they were the last ones to see him and the ghost before the disappearance." Lancer led Danny over to Zach and Taylor.

"Hey, Mr. Fenton," they chorused.

"Hi, guys. Where's Har-oh no. Don't tell me."

"Yup. He was the one that was kidnapped by the ghost." Danny nervously ran a hand through his hair.

"The plot thickens," he muttered. Aloud, he said, "Could you take me to the room where this took place?"

"Sure, Mr. Fenton." The two of them led Danny into the auditorium and pointed out the spot on the ceiling through which Skulker had entered the room.

"What did the ghost look like?"

"It looked like a giant robot with flaming green hair."

"Skulker," Danny growled, his eyes narrowed.

"What was that?"

"I know the ghost who did this. He's been a real thorn in my side practically forever, ever since he made a habit of hunting me when I was in high school. Did he say anything when he kidnapped Harry?"

"He said something about his employer needing him, but he never elaborated." Danny thought for a minute.

"I have an idea as to who may be behind this, but it's just a speculation. It'll take time to investigate further, though." He led the two of them back to the entrance to the school.

"What are you going to do, Mr. Fenton?" Lancer asked as soon as they left the building.

"First I'm going home to tell my wife what happened. Then I'm going to get my son back."

"Do you have any leads as to where he might be?"

"I have one idea." Danny began walking towards his car.

"Where do you think Harry is being held?"

"In Wisconsin." Danny hopped into the car and drove away.

* * *

_God, it's cramped in here,_ was Harry's first thought when he was sucked into the Fenton Thermos. _That was Skulker who kidnapped me; I've seen him referenced to enough times in the news when they're talking about my dad. But who could he possibly be working for? And what do they want with me? I hope that this isn't some plot by a ghost to turn me against Dad._ He heard a beeping noise and suddenly he was released from the cylindrical confines of the thermos. He frantically glanced around and noticed that he was in a floating blue cage. The room he was imprisoned in was bathed in darkness, so he couldn't determine its dimensions or location. The only light emanated from his cage, and this illuminated a chrome-paneled floor, which indicated that he was in a lab of some sort.

Suddenly, a series of overhead lights activated and bathed the room in a blinding white light. Harry blinked out the little dots that were swimming around his field of vision and looked around him. His previous guess had been correct; he was in a lab. There were beakers and test tubes caked with green and pink ectoplasm on the various lab tables, and on the opposite end of the room from his cage was a hexagon that contained a swirling green vortex. Harry looked up and saw a number of pipes interspersed within a layer of solid rock. _I must be underground. And that has to be a Fenton Portal. But who arranged all of this?_

As if in response to his question, a rather tall man exited the stairwell off to the left and entered the lab. His hair, which was slicked back in a ponytail, and his goatee were both white as snow. He was deathly pale, and his skin tone was contrasted further against his black Armani suit.

"Hello, Harry," he said in a deceptively silky voice.

"Who-who are you? Where am I? What do you want with me?"

"Shall I answer your questions in order? Very well. I am Vlad Masters, an old friend of your father and grandfather's. You are in my lab, which is located in the basement of my castle in Wisconsin. And you are here in order to take your father's place."

"Plasmius," Harry growled.

"I see your father has told you about me. In that case, there's no need for secrecy," He transformed into the blue-faced monster in a flash of black light.

"Told me who you are, yes. But he never mentioned how ugly your ghost form is!" Harry retorted. Vlad shot a pink energy blast at him, and he had to duck out of the way.

"That should teach you to hold your tongue, boy, unless you want it seared off." He cleared his throat. "Now, as I was saying, your father was supposed to join me and become my apprentice many years ago. However, he spurned my offers of power and greatness. You, on the other hand, are young and impressionable. I give you the same deal that I gave him. I can train you, teach you everything I know, and all you have to do is renounce your worthless father."

"Dude," Harry replied, "you are one _seriously_ crazed-up fruit loop. That is _never_ going to happen."

"You're more like Daniel than I had hoped. Very well, if you won't join me by choice, I'm sure that I can 'coerce' you." He picked up a remote control that had been laying on one of the lab tables, one that had a red button and a blue button. He pressed the red one and the cage delivered Harry a painful electric shock. Harry screamed, fell to the floor of the cage, and changed back to his human form.

"You will be given the same offer once every hour, on the hour. Consequently, you will receive a shock similar to this one should you refuse. I _will_ have you join me, whether you want to or not." He put down the remote and flew up through the ceiling, leaving Harry alone to his thoughts.

_I knew that he couldn't be trusted! He was evil all along, and all these years he's been tricking Dad into thinking that he's good. How on earth am I gonna get out of this one? I can't just phase out of this cage; knowing Plasmius, it would probably shock me if I even tried. I'm not able to transfigure into a cloud of smoke and slip in-between the bars just yet, and I can't teleport out of it. Ugh, if only I was more powerful! Wait a minute, that's it! I need more power to escape, and that's exactly what dear old Uncle Vlad is offering me. I'll pretend to accept his offer, and then try to escape once he lets me out. It's foolproof!_ Harry sat down in the center of his cage and waited for Vlad to come back in an hour.

"WHAT! Harry's been kidnapped by Skulker?" Sam shouted as soon as Danny told her the news. She began running around the house searching for various pieces of ghost hunting equipment and at the same time ranting about how much she would enjoy tearing apart Skulker's exo-skeleton wire by wire.

"Sam! Relax!" Danny ran over to her, grabbed her shoulders, and turned her to face him. "You don't have to go to DEFCON 5. I'm going to get Harry back, don't you worry."

"But you have no idea where to begin looking for him! He could be anywhere! For all you know, he's floating somewhere in the depths of the Ghost Zone!"

"That's not like Skulker and you know it. If anything, he would have taken Harry to his island so that he could hunt him. But I don't think that's likely."

"Why not?"

"Because Zach and Taylor were there when Skulker kidnapped him and both of them said that he was talking about how much his employer needed Harry. His employer, Sam."

"Who do you think he's working for?"

"Vlad." Sam stared at him open-mouthed.

"But I thought you decided that Vlad was good now. Why would you suspect him?"

"Several reasons. First, who else in the Ghost Zone is powerful enough to employ someone like Skulker? Second, Skulker's worked for Vlad before now. Remember when he stole those nanobots and the ecto-converter? Vlad needed those things to finish the work that he had done to the Fenton Ecto-Skeleton. I believe that Skulker is working for him again. Third, I never took Vlad up on his offer to become his apprentice. He probably thinks that I'm out of his reach by now, and so he's recruiting the next-best candidate-Harry."

"You think he thinks you're out of his reach by now?"

"Yeah. I'm too old to align myself with him by now, and I'm settled in at Axion. Wait a minute; that explains the vultures! Vlad sent them in order to test my skill at defending the labs. Based on how I did, he must have decided that I was too skilled to ever have any need to join him."

"Danny, Vlad sent those vultures about fifteen years ago, before Harry was even born. What do you think Vlad's been doing all this time?"

"I don't know, probably either biding his time until Harry's powers manifested or enjoying life with Saphira."

"That's right, they can't have children together without her disappearing! Remember what happened to the Lunch Lady?"

"Exactly. Either he's still desperate for a family or they both are. Either way, I guess cloning me isn't an option, so he wanted one of my children."

"Do you have any idea why he chose Harry and not Jaime?"

"I guess he thought that Harry resembles me more. But that's beside the point. Right now the main objective is to get Harry back!"

"Good luck, Danny." Sam gave him a quick kiss goodbye.

"I'll be back soon, Sammy." He transformed in a brilliant flash of light and zoomed out of the house.


	29. Fight Scene

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

"Have you considered my offer, young Harry?" Vlad asked as he re-entered the lab, this time in ghost form.

"I have."

"And what do you say?"

"I say…yes. I will join you, Plasmius."

"Excellent!" Vlad cheered and pressed the blue button on the remote. Harry's cage phased out of existence, and the young halfa transformed and flew straight up. Plasmius sighed and pressed a button on the wall, and instead of phasing through the ceiling as Harry had hoped, he bounced off of it.

"Hey, what gives?"

"You don't think that I hadn't thought you might try something like that? Of course I had this lab built ghost-proof. Now you can't escape and you'll suffer the punishment of having defied the most powerful ghost in existence!" He charged up a pink ectoplasmic blast and fired it at Harry. It hit dead-on and the boy fell from the sky and landed on the cold floor of the lab. He got up clutching one of his shoulders, which he feared was dislocated.

Harry flicked his eyes back up just in time to see Plasmius charging at him with the force of a Mack truck. He jumped back just as the elder halfa thrust his fist into the floor where he had been standing just half a second before. The force of the attack was so great that Vlad's fist had actually made a hole in the metal floor. He pivoted around the fist in a devastating whirlwind kick, but Harry was able to vault over Vlad's legs just in time and land behind him. Vlad phased his trapped fist out of the floor and launched a lighting-fast series of punches at Harry. He dodged most of them but the last one made contact with his gut and sent him flying across the room. He hit the opposite wall of the lab and was immediately struck by a pink energy blast. Harry fell to the ground and stood up on shaking limbs. He glared daggers at his opponent.

"I don't care if you're clearly more powerful than me," he growled. "I will never, I repeat never, join you."

"Oh, we'll see about that, Harry," Vlad replied with a smirk. Seven duplicates appeared around him and the eight of them surrounded Harry.

"Still want to refuse me?" They asked in unison as they all charged up pink energy in their open palms.

"Leave my son ALONE!" A new voice yelled as Danny burst into the lab.

"Ah, Daniel, so nice of you to join us," the eight clones said as they turned to face him.

"Get out of here now and I promise not to totally destroy you," Danny growled.

"Like you could even touch me," the duplicates mocked. "Strong you may be, but I'm even stronger. And I still have twenty years of experience over you." The eight of them shot beams of pink energy at him. Danny swiftly duplicated into four and each of the clones formed a rectangular green mirror shield with each hand. They pointed the eight shields at the pink energy blasts and the blasts reflected off them and rebounded to their owners. The Plasmius clones grunted as they were struck by their own attacks but quickly recovered and made a circle around Danny and his duplicates, which retracted into a single Danny. This time, Danny made a semi-spherical shield that absorbed the Plasmius duplicates' renewed attacks. He dropped the shield and phased down into the ground. Danny rose up from below the lab behind the circle of clones. He shot an optic blast at one of them and it dissolved into pink smoke. The other seven lined up and Danny noticed that the pink smoke from the destroyed duplicate re-entered the third Plasmius from the left. Not bothering himself with the other six, he shot another optic blast at this version of the evil halfa. This being the original Plasmius, instead of simply dissolving he was thrust back and had to recall three of his duplicates to conserve energy. One of the four remaining duplicates hit Danny with a punch that he was too slow to dodge. Danny slid backwards along the ground and collided with the opposite wall. He stood up and noticed that he was right next to Harry.

"He's so powerful…" the boy said. "I tried fighting him off, but he's just too strong." Danny grinned.

"But I have an attack that'll take out all of his clones and weaken him significantly. Cover your ears and get behind me." Harry did so and Danny built up a tremendous amount of energy in his throat and diaphragm.

The four clones barely had time to widen their eyes in shock, surprise, and Déjà vu before they were struck by Danny's Ghostly Wail. The sonic waves knocked the four of them into the opposite wall where the real Plasmius called his clones back to him. He was struck by wave after wave of the attack before he was forced to revert back to his human form. Even this wasn't enough to leave Vlad with enough energy to stay conscious; he passed out and when Danny stopped the attack he fell to the ground.

"Dad, that was so awesome! Whenever I hear people talk about your Ghostly Wail, I never imagine it to be like that at all, but the real thing is so much better than I imagined it!"

"You probably never saw it in person because I never use it; it's so destructive that if I were to try it on a ghost it would take out most of the surrounding buildings."

"How long have you had it?"

"Since I was fifteen. But it takes so much energy that I couldn't hold it for more then a few seconds back then and I'd change back as soon as I finished using it. Thank god I'm finally past that stage."

"Do you think I'll ever learn how to do that?"

"Maybe. How much energy do you have?"

"Some; not enough to fly all the way home from Wisconsin, though."

"Then I guess we'll have to go via the Plasmius Portal, then."

"You mean Vlad's portal?"

"Yeah. It's a much faster flight if we go through the Ghost Zone. Once we go through this portal it's only about a half-hour flight back to the one at FentonWorks. From there we can get home in a couple of minutes."

"But I've never been in the Ghost Zone before! And you're Public Enemy #1 there and you're at reduced strength from using the Wail!" Danny shrugged.

"Eh, you worry too much. There's a first time for everything, including seeing the Ghost Zone. And even though I'm at reduced strength, I'm still strong enough to fight off anyone that gets in our way. But, we may not need to worry about other ghosts…do you mind if we make a pit-stop?"

"Huh?"

"If we stop to see Box Lunch on the way home, we'll be able to argue that I was in the Ghost Zone on ghostfatherly duties, so I'm immune to any dangers of the Ghost Zone and through me, you."

"Ghostfather?"

"It's sort of like a godfather, but for ghosts. The second day after you were born, the Box Ghost and his daughter came to me while you, your mom and I were in the hospital. He asked that I become his daughter's ghostfather and I accepted. You should meet her."

"Well, I'm kind of low on energy so if we're going to do this, we should do it now." The two of them rose up into the air and flew into Vlad's ghost portal just as his eyes fluttered open.

"I will have you as my apprentice, Harry," the man swore. "You can count on it."


	30. The Ghost ZoneChapter the Last

**Disclaimer: For the last time, I do _not_ own Danny Phantom!**

* * *

"Whoa, it's so…" Harry's voice trailed off as he looked around the spectral dimension. 

"Green?" Danny offered. Harry nodded. "Ectoplasm has three varieties-red, blue, and green. Green ectoplasm is the most stable form and also the most common, and so the majority of the Ghost Zone is green."

"The other two types are more volatile?"

"It's not that, just…blue is really weak and so it usually enters solution with the green. Red is extremely powerful and unstable, so what little raw red ectoplasm exists is locked away so that no ghosts can imbibe it and get more powerful." Just then, a tall ghost clad in all white approached them.

"You know better than to come 'round these parts, Phantom. I'm gonna have to take you in, now."

"Not today, Walker. My son and I are here to visit my ghostdaughter, Box Lunch." Walker blinked stupidly.

"I see," he finally replied. "I guess I can let you go this time, but if I catch you 'round here again, you and I are gonna have a problem."

"Sir yes sir," Danny rejoined. He mock-saluted and led Harry away from the other ghost.

"Who was that guy?" his son asked.

"His name's Walker, and I guess you could call him the sheriff of the Ghost Zone. He has a huge prison that he'll drag you to if he catches you breaking one of his million and one rules. He gave me one thousand years once upon a time, but I managed to organize a prison break so everyone got out."

"What were you doing?"

"Looking for my dad's anniversary present to my mom."

"And that's against the law?"

"Possession of real-world contraband."

"I see." They approached a square door that said 'fragile' and 'This end up' and took it. They entered a realm that was purple except for all of the various real-world items that were floating around.

"Where are we now?"

"This is where the Box Ghost and Box Lunch live." Danny and Harry flew around the realm for a while. After some time they ran into the Box Ghost, who was frantically flying around and opening every box he passed. He opened one and Box Lunch flew out of it.

"You found me, Daddy!" she squealed with delight.

"You cannot hide in a box from me, for I am the Box Ghost!" The blue specter replied.

"A-hem," Danny coughed and the two of them turned around, startled. The Box Ghost was the first to speak.

"Phantom!" he shouted, "What brings you to the realm of the Box Ghost?"

"I'm just here to check up on my favorite ghostdaughter," he replied as he ruffled Box Lunch's hair. "I also wanted to introduce you to my son, Harry. It's his first time in the Ghost Zone." The two box-themed spirits looked behind Danny and noticed the younger halfa floating there for the very first time.

"Hello, Harry Phantom! I am the Box Ghost!"

"And I am Box Lunch, the daughter of the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady! Welcome to the Ghost Zone!"

"Uh…thanks."

"Wait a minute," the Box Ghost said thoughtfully, "it was your party that I crashed last time I was on earth, was it not?"

"It was," Harry replied.

"Did all of the guests tremble in fear of me?"

"Uh…sure. Yeah, they sure were afraid of you." The Box Ghost smirked triumphantly.

"That's right, puny humans. All will fear the awesome might of the Box Ghost!"

"Yeah, everyone fears you," Danny interrupted, "now we have to get back home."

"Come back soon, Danny!" Box Lunch called to the two halfas as they approached the door that lead to the main area of the Ghost Zone.

"I will," he called back, and he and Harry once again were surrounded by swirling green gasses and purple doors. They flew on until they saw a swirling vortex suspended in mid-air.

"Is that the Fenton Portal?" Harry asked.

"Yup. Oh, before we go, hold on a minute." The two of them stopped. "Try going intangible. Harry concentrated but nothing happened.

"It's not working!"

"I know it's not. That's what I was telling you and Jaime before-you can't go intangible or invisible in the Ghost Zone. Now that that's done, c'mon, let's get out of here before Walker comes back." They flew through the vortex and into the basement of FentonWorks.

"See? Thirty minutes, tops." Danny asserted as he looked up at a clock. He and Harry went intangible and flew up through the ceiling. They regained tangibility in front of FentonWorks and flew back home.

Danny phased into his living room and saw Jaime and Sam sitting on the couch. They were looking through a photo album and when they looked up at Danny, he could see that they had been crying.

"Did you find Harry? Is he okay? Where is he?" Sam demanded.

"It's okay, Sam, relax; Harry's fine. My guess was correct, Skulker had been sent to kidnap him by Plasmius. It appears that Vlad wanted him to take my place as his apprentice."

"Plasmius? I knew he hadn't given up evil! He's the same crazed-up, cat-needing fruit loop he always was!"

"I know," Danny groaned, "And he played me for a sap all these years. I honestly thought he had turned over a new leaf, but I guess he proved that I'm as gullible as my dad."

"You're not gullible," Sam consoled him. "You just see the best in people, and that's really admirable."

"There isn't a 'best' anywhere in Vlad."

"True." She paused. "I guess you are a little gullible."

"Not helping."

"Not lying. So where's Harry?"

"Took you long enough to realize I hadn't come back!" a disembodied voice said from Danny's left. Harry flickered into visibility and changed back into his human form in a flash of green light, and Sam ran over to him and wrapped him in a tight bear hug.

"Mom…can't breathe…"

"Sorry." She let go of him. "So what happened, young man?"

"As everyone was leaving orientation Skulker came and sucked me into a Fenton Thermos. When he let me out I was in a cage in Vlad's underground lab. He asked me to join him and when I refused he made the cage give me an electric shock. An hour later, he came to me with the same question and I pretended to accept so that he would let me out. As soon as he took down the cage, I tried to escape but he activated a ghost shield that kept me inside. I tried to fight him, but he was so powerful, all I could do was dodge for a little bit. I was about to get the snot beaten out of me but then Dad showed up and fought Vlad. Man, it was totally wicked! Dad took out one of Vlad's seven clones and then shot the original with an eye blast, then used his Ghostly Wail on him. That made Vlad go unconscious and slip back into human mode. Then we came home."

"You had enough energy to fly home from Wisconsin after fighting Plasmius?"

"Nah, Dad and I went through the Ghost Zone. It only took about half an hour."

"What? You were weak from your fight," she turned on Danny, "and you had to have been weak from using the Wail. What if you ran into one of your enemies? What if you ran into Walker?"

"We did run into Walker. But I used the excuse that we were visiting Box Lunch so he let us go," Danny replied.

"Yeah," Harry interrupted, "We saw where the Box Ghost lives with his daughter. Their lair was all purple and had a bunch of real-world items."

"Still it was really dangerous, and you both could have been killed, and…" she sighed. "But you're safe now, and that's all that matters. C'mon, you're dad and I are going to make dinner, then we're going to eat and go to bed, and hopefully we'll wake up and everything will be back to normal.

After they ate Harry and Jaime went upstairs, and Danny and Sam went over to their favorite spot on the couch to snuggle together and talk.

"Well, here's to a life spent dodging Vlad and trying to defend the ones we love from his nefarious plots," said Sam as she rested her head in the crook of Danny's neck.

"Yeah," her love replied, "but it's like you said before dinner-for us, that's just life getting back to normal."

"I guess so," she paused and chuckled a bit. "I suppose that that's as normal as life is going to get for a family of Fentons."

"Or Phantoms," he added.

THE END

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Whoo! You know, when I started writing this, I thought that there was no end in sight. Then I got discouraged because a simple fluffy fic turned into a GX. But I guess it all turned out okay in the end. I suppose I could do an epilogue if you really want me to, but unless I get a cascade of reviews it's not likely to happen. 

Thank you Sleep Warrior, GoingGhost, AirGirl Phantom, Rayne 4 EVR, dplover101, Catmedium, Hakkyou Kuusou, and all the rest of you for being such loyal reviewers. You guys rock! Seriously, I mean it, a good review really makes my day. Like today at lunch, I was depressed because I hadjust found out that I didn't get the grade I wanted on my SAT that I took in early April, but then I went online and read a couple of really good reviews and my whole outlook brightened. Don't underestimate yourselves-that little purple button can work wonders.

But anyway, enough of my boring you with dumb anecdotes. You all have bigger and better things you can be doing with your lives than reading my annoying drivel, and by bigger and better things I meaning other fanfics. So I won't keep you anymore.

ta

-Ghostboy814


	31. Epilogue

I really wasn't planning on doing this, but so many people asked for an epilogue that I just couldn't say no. And I also had the idea for Harry's lame nickname a few weeks ago and so I wanted to get this out before someone else thought of it too and published it first. So, to all you loyal readers who've beared with me since January, here it is-the epilogue.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom!**

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Harry, Zach, and Taylor were walking to Harry's house after school one fine Wednesday afternoon when all of a sudden Harry breathed out a cloud of green mist. The halfa ran into a deserted alley and morphed into Harry Phantom, then took to the skies. Once he had ascended above the roofs of the nearby houses, he was able to see the large purple blob downtown that had triggered his ghost sense. He dropped back down to where his friends were standing.

"Do either of you two happen have a thermos, by any chance?" He inquired of them.

"Yeah, just a sec…" Zach rummaged around in his backpack for a bit. He pulled out a Fenton Thermos and handed it to his friend.

"Thanks man."

"No problem. That's what sidekicks are for, right?" Harry grinned.

"Good luck," Taylor called. Harry mock-saluted and took to the skies once again.

Harry wasn't that fast of a flier just yet; so far in his grandparents' basement his friends had measured his top speed to be around 70 mph. He was just entering the commercial section of Amity Park when he heard someone shout up to him.

"Hey, it's Intangi-Bill!" The voice called. Harry stopped dead in his tracks. He slowly turned around and landed in front of the offender, a young man who appeared to be in his early thirties.

"What did you just call me?" The halfa asked, his voice oddly calm in a way that creeped the man out. He quivered on the spot and gulped nervously before he was able to respond.

"I-Intangi-b-b-bill…" He stuttered.

"That," Harry asserted in the same calm voice, "Is by far the worst name ever. Get this into your head, you and all of the other people who messed up both my name and my father's name. My. Name. Is. Harry. Phantom. Kapische?" The man nodded his head vigorously. "Good." Harry slightly bent his knees and pushed off of the ground, and resumed his flight towards the offending ghost.

The purple mass of ectoplasm saw the halfa in the corner of his eye and growled. It swung one of its four tentacles at Harry, but the young hybrid managed to dodge the flagellated attack, which instead slammed into the side of a building. The monster roared in pain and raised all four of its tentacles at once. Harry gulped.

Just before the beast could bring the appendages down, it grimaced and turned around. Harry flew over to the other side of the monster to find out why. On the ghost's other side floated his sister, her hands glowing with purple energy.

"Let's end this already, I'm going to be late for my movie!" Jaime yelled to him.

"On it, sis!" He yelled back. He fired a green energy blast at the beast just as she fired a purple one. The power of both attacks combined knocked the ghost into another building and incapacitated it, thereby allowing Harry to suck it into the thermos.

"So what movie are you seeing?" He casually asked her.

"Me and Andrew are going to see Dead Teacher XI," was the reply. Harry's left eye twitched. She and Andrew had been getting pretty serious lately. However, the ghost boy didn't voice any negative opinions to her. He simply shrugged and flew away.

Jaime turned intangible and flew through the roof of the movie theater into the lobby. She turned invisible and transformed in a flash of amethyst light behind a ten-foot tall Sayonara Pussycat blow-up. The ghost girl met up with Andrew by the concession stand and the two of them entered the theater hand in hand.

That night, the four Fentons were eating dinner.

"So, how was your day, you two?" Danny asked.

"Eh," Harry shrugged. "We had one ghost downtown this afternoon but besides that it was pretty uneventful."

"Was it tough?"

"Not really. It was just a blob of ectoplasmic slime, really. Jaime and I got it in the thermos without too much difficulty."

"Good, glad to hear it. How did the deal go, Sammy?"

"It went through," his wife announced. "I officially own Skulk and Lurk books, as of this afternoon."

"That's awesome, mom!" Jaime exclaimed.

"Thanks. I'm glad I did it; keeping the store will give me something to do during the day and keep me from growing fat and old." Danny snorted.

"Like you could ever be fat. I still remember that fitness test, you know." Sam glared at him, but he knew that she was just playing. Just then, he, Harry, and Jaime all breathed out mist of varying hues as Skulker rose out of the table.

"I was in the middle of hunting a rare ghost that resembled a manticore when I remembered that I never did fulfill my goal of having your head as a trophy," he told Danny.

"That's a nice mental image," Jaime mused, disgusted. The three hybrids stood up and morphed into their ghost forms.

"Three Phantoms? You can't be serious!" Skulker moaned.

"Oh, but we are. Ready, kids?"

"Ready, Dad!" They chorused. They drew their fists back and swung them forward with a FWAM.

THE _REAL_END

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Thank you! Thank you all for reading my work and reviewing these past 30 chapters! I can't begin to tell you how much all of you mean to me. 


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